Students Safely Evacuated Tuesday

North Mahaska school officials instituted an emergency evacuation of the school Tuesday afternoon after a gas leak was reported at the Dollar General. The store is located about one-quarter mile from the school.

Reportedly a utility company was digging in the area struck a major gas line forcing the evacuation of the school and blocking of U.S. 63 and 235th Street, which is the main arterial road into the school campus.

Officials were notified just after 2 p.m. and the school instituted its emergency plan. Making the process of movement of vehicles and students is the fact that the school has an extensive construction project that limited traffic flow. The decision was made that the only way in and out was through the north exit. School officials learned a lot about movement of students and staff during the emergency.

“In an emergency situation and or preventative evacuation as in today’s situation, the goal is to get everyone out and home safely,” said superintendent Angela Livezey. “We were notified of a gas leak at Dollar General by the Mahaska 911 center today at 2 p.m. They told us to put our buses on standby in case of an emergency evacuation. After further discussion with the Mahaska County Sheriff’s Office and the unknown certainty of how long it was going to take to fix the gas leak, they decided to go ahead and have us dismiss students early.

“All students were dismissed and safely evacuated from the building. The students were never in any danger. This was precautionary only. It’s better to be safe in these situations.”

Livezey said the communication system used to alert parents did not work as effectively as hoped but vowed to work on a plan for improving the communications.

No injuries were reported during the incident. All students were gone from the school by 3:30 p.m. The incident scene was cleared after 4 p.m. and the roads were re-opened.