Campus, News

Gas leak prompts Myles evacuation

Boston University officials evacuated Myles Standish Hall to investigate the smell of gas coming from the basement Monday between 9 and 10 p.m. The odor turned out to be heating fuel, officials said.

‘They had a release of 75 gallons of number 4 fuel oil and now it has to be cleaned up,’ Boston District Fire Chief Robert Dowling said.

BU Police Department Sgt. Patrick Nuzzi said the evacuation was mainly precautionary. Boston Fire Department officials had given the all clear for re-entry, but BU’s version of a hazardous materials team, BU Environmental Health and Safety, wanted to ventilate the building and get rid of the odor before allowing students back inside.

Rather than fear of an explosion, as is a danger with gasoline, Nuzzi said this type of fuel’s only danger is its odor.

‘It’s heating fuel, so it gives off a very pungent odor,’ Nuzzi said. ‘They don’t want anybody getting sick over the odor. It’s not going to kill you, it’s just going to make you sick.’

The actual number of gallons of escaped fuel is difficult to determine, and could have been anywhere from 25 to 75 gallons leaked, Nuzzi said.

Minutes before the fire alarm in the building started going off, BU Facilities Zone Manager Jack Tobin said he thought the problem was a small exhaust malfunction in the boiler room. He said a security guard called it in.

Tobin said Myles facilities employees had called the furnace company to fix the problem, as they had worked on it the night before.’ As firefighters entered the building, Tobin said they discovered that the problem was actually a real leak.

College of Arts Sciences junior Kaitlin Copson said she smelled the gas when she came downstairs to get her laundry.

‘I was upstairs watching ‘One Tree Hill,” she said. ‘I just came downstairs, and I smelled it.’

College of Engineering junior Yu Jie said he did not know what was happening until’ after the alarm went off.

‘I was walking downstairs, probably around the second floor, when I started smelling it,’ Yu Jie said.

CAS sophomore Caitlin McGuire said she agreed.

‘The fire alarm went off, and we thought they weren’t serious,’ she said. ‘And then we smelled gas in the stairwell when we came down.’

Officials told students they could reenter the building around 11:15 p.m., giving hazmat an hour to clean up. Myles students were sent to Shelton Hall of The Towers in the meantime.

‘They said go find a place to stay it’s going to be a while,’ College of Communication junior Ayesha Ahmed said. ‘Everyone was just kind of like, ‘Crap, we all have work.”

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