“I thought it was an alien invasion. All of a sudden the lights went off, and then when they came back on, like three of them were just blinking and there was weird flashing. Then my computer had the orange ring of death and I was really worried…”
Becky Reickel, Middletown High School media specialist, was no different than the hundreds of other people who got caught up in the drama of Sept. 1, when almost the entire school population knew something was going on; they just didn’t know what, exactly. It didn’t take long for the rumors to spread like wildfire.
The rumors stemmed from reports of billowing smoke, an evacuation of the school and the presence of emergency crews, including firefighters from multiple area fire companies, outside the school.
Jim Zimmer, MHS transition education teacher, was surprised by what he was told.
“I was out for a walk with my neighbor and I got a call from Mrs. Gibson – and Mrs. Gibson doesn’t call unless something is really wrong. She said ‘I just want to prepare you, there’s been an explosion in the school,’ said Zimmer. “I immediately thought, ‘The entire school is gone. Well, no school tomorrow.”
Zimmer said how at the beginning of the 2013 school year, new gas pipes were installed and that he was worried that it could have been a gas leak. “I hoped that it didn’t happen in my room,” he said with a laugh.
There were numerous accounts from students of what happened Tuesday evening. Shannon Baker said that there was an “explosion in the Ag room.” Sophie Macmaster heard that there was a fire, and some ventilation issues. Morgan Weaver got a text from a friend at the school at the time of the incident saying that there was a fire in a classroom.
News was flurrying about even on social media late Tuesday evening. “[Apparently] school was on fire [somewhere] in the back. Everyone on Snapchat had stories about it,” said Karlin O’Neil, MHS senior.
In the end, it turned out that the dramatic stories weren’t accurate and that the cause of the firefighters’ presence at the school was more precautionary than anything else.
Lee Jeffrey, MHS principal, sent out an email at 11:45 p.m. that read, “MHS had a partial power outage this evening that caused a short in some equipment. The short in the equipment caused an odor in a classroom, so the building was evacuated as a precaution. The Fire Department was contacted and emergency crews responded… Power has been restored to the building and the short in the equipment has been resolved.”
It turned out that the truth was far less intriguing than the stories that had been spreading on social media and by word-of-mouth. Brad George, MHS counselor, said everyone needs to “take information with a grain of salt,” and not immediately jump to conclusions.
