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Around half-past five, I heard a muffled sound of a very loud buzzer in my office. It sounded the same as the fire alarm that went off a couple of months ago. I figured that it was another false alarm, or another test, so I didn't pay too much attention to it (besides, I was trying to watch 405). A few minutes later, I was told by one of the profs that there was a fire going on in C2 and since we were adjacent to the building, we had to evacuate as well. Oh goody. So I spent the better part of the next five minutes making my way down the stairs and out the doors. I listened around to find out what was going on, and apparently the fire broke out in one of the third floor labs in the chemistry building. I stayed outside (along with all the people that were left in the chemistry building) while the fire crews came by to assess the damage. A number of them entered the building while the backup crew hovered near our position. We later heard some chatter about one of the chemical bottles had blown up, and that it was an unknown substance. Don't you just love having fires in chemistry buildings?
We waited out there for another half-an-hour before the firefighters came out. Apparently, it was mostly fumes and smoke and that there wasn't a real fire. That was good news since they didn't have to hose down the area (which would've meant that everything in that area - and all of the floors below - would've been flooded). Anyway, we had to wait a bit longer for the fumes to dissipate before being allowed back into the building, and here I am.
Oh yeah, C|Net bought out Ziff Davis. (As heard from ArsTechnica.)
Thursday, July 20, 2000 at 15:13:33 (UTC)
Hey wow, my first comment! This is a "spilled chemical" story.
We had a chemical spill at Queen's last year in Botterell Hall. It interrupted our anatomy lab and we were forced onto the street without our stuff (backpacks, etc.). We waited anxiously outside to be allowed in to grab our stuff and run. We found out while we were waiting that it was pyridine that was spilled. Pyridine is a compound known to cause sterility -- in males. Needless to say, the women were calmer when we rushed in to rescue our backpacks. HKL
The Grinning Reaper <e-mail>