A false alarm in McBain Hall, triggered by discharge from a fire extinguisher that created the illusion of smoke on the sixth floor, led to the evacuation of all floors early Saturday morning.
“I leaned back from my chair to look out my open door and I saw this white smoke coming out from the corner of the hallway,” Matteo Malinverno, CC ’11, said.
Though the residence hall, located on 113th Street and Broadway, is steps away from a fire station, trucks did not arrive until 2:58 a.m., 13 minutes after the evacuation.
“I feel bad for the people trapped inside, because if I had been sleeping I wouldn’t have gotten up,” said Daniel Gentile, CC ’11, during the evacuation.
E. Anderson, a security guard who stood in the lobby while students were allowed to re-enter the building at 3:05 a.m., confirmed that the havoc was the result of someone tampering with an extinguisher on the sixth floor. Carpets and walls on that floor were covered with a yellow, soot-like residue afterward.
On Saturday evening, an unrelated flood occurred in the men’s restroom on the seventh floor, causing leakage on a number of floors below. Facilities came to clean and dry the carpet a couple hours later.
“I was at Harvard over Election Day weekend, and their dorms are amazing,” said Nathan Pak, CC ’11. “But McBain has floods and fires!”
scott.levi@columbiaspectator.com
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