Girard school campus to reopen today after evacuation

Staff report

girard

Girard high and intermediate schools were to reopen today after the smell of natural gas in the building prompted an evacuation Wednesday morning.

The Girard Fire Department was called to the campus on Shannon Road at 9:37 a.m.

Students were taken to the Shiloh Temple on Shannon to wait for the department and Dominion East Ohio to clear the building, but the district decided to send them home at 11 a.m.

“We called parents and dismissed school,” said district Superintendent David Cappuzzello, adding that the church was not the most comfortable area to house 800 students.

By 1:45 p.m., the fire department and the gas company said the building was safe, he added.

“We shut off our air handlers, and that helped,” he said. The air handlers pull fresh air in from outside.

The fire department and gas company found nothing wrong in the building, he said, and checked 200 yards out in each direction around it, finding nothing.

Cappuzzello said a gas well in the area may have emitted the smell.