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Staff at Wiscasset Middle High School failed to properly handle a dangerous propane leak in a classroom last month, in part by allowing matches to be lit in the same room after the leak was discovered, according to local officials.
A lieutenant with the Wiscasset Fire Department criticized the response to the Oct. 10 propane leak during a meeting of the local school board this week, arguing that it was a “real-life emergency” but that staff didn’t take all the necessary precautions.
Students also were not immediately evacuated from the building after the leak was discovered. When they were, they were not taken far enough away from the building, Lt. Devin Grover said during the meeting.
“People’s kids and people’s lives were in danger at some point that day,” said Grover, who was one of the firefighters who responded to the leak.
During the school board meeting, Superintendent Kim Andersson acknowledged that the dangerous situation should have been handled differently.
“We are so lucky that we didn’t blow up the school,” Andersson said.
The propane leak and the conversation about it were first reported by the Wiscasset Newspaper.
According to Andersson, the leak started at around 9 a.m., when a teacher turned on the propane jet on a Bunsen burner in a classroom, and then didn’t turn it off. At about 9:20 a.m., during class changes, a different teacher noticed the jet was on due to the smell and the sound, turned it off, opened a window and called for help.
The school was then evacuated at 9:40 a.m., but Andersson said that it should have been evacuated right at 9:20 a.m.
On that day, school administrators including Andersson and the principal of the middle-high school were not in that building, but about a mile away at the town’s elementary school for a ceremony to celebrate the selection of one of its employees as Maine Teacher of the Year.
Grover noted several issues with the school’s response, including that children were not removed to a safe enough distance from the school, when they should have been taken off the property completely. He also said the fire department did not receive communication that everyone had been evacuated and a list of the students that had been accounted for.
Both he and Andersson also noted that matches were lit in the classroom after the leak, but they did not provide more information about what they or the burner were being used for.
In response to the incident, the district has started reviewing its evacuation procedures and the school board will review the incident at its next meeting, Andersson said. She also said the district has stopped using propane burners and switched to using hot plates.
Andersson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In comments provided to the Wiscasset Newspaper, she said, “Since the incident, administration has met and discussed how we could have handled that situation differently, including immediately evacuating the building at 9:20 a.m. Training around evacuations is ongoing.”
