An odor of natural gas forced several dozen students and faculty to evacuate White Gravenor Hall onto Copley Lawn on Wednesday and triggered a fire alarm that brought the D.C. Fire Department to campus.
University officials believed the smell was caused by a natural gas leak outside of White Gravenor. District and university officials checked the surrounding area for the source of the gas smell before deeming the building safe for reopening later that evening.
David Morrell, vice president for university safety, said that officials from the Washington Gas company “had indicated that the gas came from outside the building somewhere.”
Fire officials arrived on campus shortly after the alarm went off at 3:30 p.m. Two fire trucks parked on the path between Copley and Copley Lawn, blocking pedestrian traffic through Red Square.
Students and faculty waited on Copley Lawn after they were evacuated from the building. Some classes held later that day in White Gravenor moved to ICC, Walsh and Reiss.
G. Reid Johnson (COL ’06) was in the middle of a test on the second floor of White Gravenor when he and his classmates were forced to evacuate the building.
“We were sitting there and I smelled gas, and right after that the fire alarm went off,” Johnson said. “We could still smell the gas outside.”
Johnson said that a Department of Public Safety officer came to the door of his classroom immediately after the fire alarm went off and told the class to get out of the building.
“Normally in a fire alarm no one’s really sure that it’s real,” but the presence of a DPS officer made it more urgent, he said.
Psychology Professor Steven Sabat was in the middle of teaching when his class was evacuated.
“My students were smelling it, but I’m kind of stopped up,” he said.
Sabat said that he told his students to grab their belongings and get out of the building.
Amy Sussman, an employee in the psychology department who was also in White Gravenor during the incident, said that she smelled gas “at least an hour and a half before the alarm went off.”
“I’m surprised no one passed out,” she said.
Doris Bey, associate director of DPS, said that there was the “smell of gas” but not necessarily a gas leak.
“[The DCFD was] not quite sure where it was coming from,” she said. “They were saying it might be the smell of sewer gas.”
The main gas line to the building was turned off after DPS found out about the smell, but it has since been turned back on following approval from Washington Gas.
Bey said she was not aware of any warning system currently in place for this type of emergency.
Earlier in the day a gas nozzle had been reported as being left on. DPS responded to this report before the evacuation later in the day.