Evacuations strike Oakton during after-school activities

Students who stayed after school on Monday and Wednesday last week were met with a bit of a surprise when they were forced to evacuate the building and wait outside in the cold.

The two incidents together, unusual enough in their own right, set whole new precedents for what constitutes coincidence.  First, on Monday, staff in the main hallway by the Burgundy Office reported some sort of airborne irritant which caused coughing and throat discomfort. The threat of a potential contaminant caused the fire department to come in and quarantine the entire building. Following an hour of investigation, the firemen could still not determine the source of contamination, but re-opened the side of the school furthest from the contaminant.

Fortunately for those at the school that evening, including the numerous students gathered for the annual Dig Pink volleyball event, activities were able to carry on relatively unaffected, with the only significant change being the cancellation of the girl’s freshman volleyball match.

The hectic events of Monday evening were followed by another set of evacuations and delays on the following Wednesday, following an issue with the pressure of the sprinkler system’s pipes. After an alarm went off in the main office,  the fire department once again had to be called in; this time, however, with only the job of shutting off the alarm and readjusting  some pressure valves. Although the rumors floating around the school may have suggested differently, the two evacuations of the last two days were simply big coincidences that happened to occur in the same week — and which likely won’t occur again any time soon.

As Mr. Full said, “the fact is that our school is an older building, and weird things like this will happen sometimes. They just happen, and ultimately they don’t play that big of a deal.”