Georgetown students evacuated White Gravenor yesterday as the scent of natural gas permeated the air more than 100 feet away from the building.
Fire alarms rang at 3:30 p.m., possibly in response to a gas leak in a chemistry lab in room 411, according to firefighters on the scene.
Students were kept away from the building while officials checked the building for the source of the gas.
Georgetown Director of Safety and Environmental Management Phil Hagan said the gas could have come from several sources, among them a break in the gas line or the sewers.
Several of the science labs in the building use gas for experiments.
An evacuated chemistry student, still in his white lab coat, said a gas valve had been left on earlier that day.
Displaced from White Gravenor, the Office of the University Registrar used other campus resources to quickly re-locate classes. Director of Academic Events Michelle McVay directed students to their revised classrooms.
“You still have class, sorry,” McVay joked to students.
White Gravenor reopened at 4:45, except the fourth floor, where professors locked up their laboratories for the rest of the day.
