By Michael Walsh
The CCSU campus was abuzz last Tuesday as three separate buildings were evacuated throughout the course of the day.
Campus officials and the New Britain Fire Department first responded to a smokey fire in the upper level of James residence Hall Tuesday morning. The fire was caused by a mechanical failure.
“The cause of the smoke and flames is an exhaust flue for the engine chiller. That was in the mechanical room under the roof. That has been removed and they’re now working on a replacement,” said Mark McLaughlin, Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communication.
Roughly 400 students were evacuated from the residence hall. James hall remained closed the rest of the day and night, leaving students that lived in the hall the options of either going home for the night, spending the night with a friend in another dorm or taking advantage of the hundreds of cots CCSU set up with the help of the Red Cross.
McLaughlin noted that no students were overcome by smoke due to the fire and that the building was confirmed empty after a floor-by-floor check conducted by the NBFD and the CCSU facilities management.
The school brought in a professional cleaning crew later in the day to take care of the lingering smokey smell inside of James hall. The residence hall was reopened for students the next day.
Just before noon CCSU officials and the NBFD responded to the evacuation of the student center after two students complained of feeling ill. The building’s air quality was investigated by the NBFD and state officials. The two students, one of whom reportedly passed out, were taken to the hospital and treated.
McLaughlin confirmed that the two ill-feeling students were not in James hall earlier in the morning and that their illnesses and the evacuation were a coincidence.
“The students were, as it turns out, ill before they came to campus. Their illnesses kind of caught up with them,” said McLaughlin.
Rumors spread throughout the students waiting to get back into the student center that there was a possible carbon monoxide or other gas leak inside the building, all of which turned out to not be true. The student center was tested and confirmed safe before students and staff were allowed to go back inside.
While the campus was still buzzing from the day’s first two building evacuations, the NBFD had to be called in once again just before 4:oo p.m. after the Elihu Burritt library was evacuated because of a reported gaseous smell.
The smell turned out to be a small amount of pepper spray that had been released somewhere in the library. The fire department brought in fans to ventilate the building. Order was restored quickly and students, faculty and staff were allowed to return back inside just before 4:30 p.m.
Janice Palmer, a media relations officer at CCSU, commented saying that she isn’t sure whether or not the police would press charges should they find out who released the pepper spray. Palmer noted that the pepper spray could be harmful to those individuals that are asthmatic.
McLaughlin confirmed that the police were looking into the situation, but said that there were no findings to report.