Students at the Quashnet Elementary School in Mashpee were sent home early following a natural gas leak in the school.
Mashpee Fire Chief Thomas Rullo tells WXTK News they were alerted when a pull station was activated inside the school. Teachers and administrators followed procedure and quickly evacuated the students from the building.
"We're all very sensitive to what's happened up in the Andover, Lawrence area, obviously, which is why it's great that we do these school drills all year long," said Chief Rullo. "These kids reacted like they're supposed to. They came out of the school quickly, evacuated the school quickly and we would not have allowed them to go back in until we made sure they weren't in an explosive atmosphere."
Rullo says the odor of natural gas was strongest in the cafeteria area of the school but firefighters could not immediately isolate the source and the multiple HVAC units were pulling the gas odor throughout the rest of the building so the decision was made to shut off the gas and discharge the students until the source could be located.