HOWARD — East Knox Superintendent Steve Larcomb ordered junior and senior high students to temporarily evacuate their classrooms Tuesday morning after smoke was noticed in the Ag building.
According to Larcomb, the maintenance workers at East Knox said they believed the smoke was caused when a high-limit capacitor in the Ag building went bad. Though the Ag building is attached to the Junior/Senior High building, it has its own furnace.
“[The capacitor] allowed the furnace to continue heating beyond where it should,” Larcomb explained.
Officials are still piecing everything together, but Larcomb said a rag was near the capacitor, which caused a lot of smoke. He was unsure if there were any actual flames, but noted the amount of smoke that dissipated throughout the building by a nearby air intake.
“I happened to walk over to the building and noticed it, but they already knew about it at that point. As I was standing there it got worse,” Larcomb said. “Even though it was a known problem and there was no immediate danger, we went ahead and evacuated up to the elementary to give us time to air it out.”
The Eastern Knox County Joint Fire District was also called to evaluate the situation. The firefighters used detectors to determine that the air quality was safe.
The students, who just returned to school after their holiday break, were taken to the elementary side of the district’s building while the air was cleared.
“They reacted wonderfully,” Larcomb commended, adding that the students had time to get their coats before congregating in the gymnasium. “They’re great kids and not surprisingly they were very well-behaved, very orderly.”
No injuries were reported from the incident.
