KENT, OH — An evacuation of Kent State’s Cunningham Hall and the neighboring Cunningham Hall Annex has now been lifted after a strange odor mandated their immediate closure.
Staff members reported smelling the odor around 11:30 a.m., and Kent Fire fighters immediately evacuated about 100 people from the building and the annex as a precaution. There were no injuries or road closures.
Fire fighters and investigators from Dominion East Ohio determined there was a small crack in a two-inch natural gas line connected to a generator on the roof of Cunningham Hall. Repairs were completed and the evacuation was lifted at approximately 3 p.m. Further investigation determined that the original odor came from a science lab where a sulfur compound had not been capped correctly, so the odor and the gas line repair were not related.
Throughout the evacuation, Kent State students, faculty and staff were kept informed via Flash Alerts (text messages), social media and on the university website. The first text alert was issued at 11:41 a.m.
Cunningham Hall, built in 1968, provides 93,000 square feet of education space for Kent State’s Department of Biological Sciences. Cunningham Hall also includes an addition that was completed in 2001.
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Media Contact:
Eric Mansfield, emansfie@kent.edu, 330-672-2797