The usual classroom routine was interrupted Wednesday, February 13 by the fire alarm during second hour, forcing the entire school out of their classrooms and outside to wait for the administration and the fire department to figure out what was going wrong.

Associate Principal Paul Burns said a sprinkler head broke in the boys’ locker room, the same issue that caused a similar problem in the library last year.  The locker room flooded and the custodians had to drain and disinfect the area.

“We are still assessing the damage,” Burn said.  “Some textbooks were damaged, some students’ personal possessions were also damaged; we will take the next few days for damage assessment.”

Following the incident, rumors circulated that Kevin O’Mara, senior, was involved with the broken sprinkler.  O’Mara said that he and some friends in the locker room saw that there was a chain of locks on the sprinkler and that he was trying to take one of them off.

“You see something on the ceiling, you’re gonna take it down,” O’Mara said.  He said he was trying to take one of the locks off but instead set off the sprinkler in the locker room.

“It was a fiasco,” he said.  “I tried to take the lock off, but I broke something [the administration] told me changes the water pressure and water poured out in buckets.”

O’Mara said he was called into the office but has not received disciplinary action because he did not intentionally set off the fire alarm.

During second and third hour, the administration informed teachers that they had to stand in the hallway in place of the temporarily out of commission sprinkler system to keep watch for any fires, and report any such emergencies immediately.

Ed Bolton, chemistry teacher, said it was rather annoying, but the safety of the students comes first, so it was worth it.

“Obviously the safety of our students is paramount,” he said.  “But they fixed it by third hour so we’re all off the hook.”

Principal Burns said the school followed the usual emergency procedures and that the faculty responded well, allowing the administration to assess the situation and make appropriate decisions.