By SANDY McGEE

CUMBERLAND — Garvin Memorial Elementary School was evacuated Thursday after staff detected an odor of gas.
Teachers, staff and about 388 students in kindergarten to grade 5 exited the school building around 11:50 a.m. They walked a safe distance down the road to the St. Aidan Church hall as firefighters, police and National Grid responded to the school, located at 1364 Diamond Hill Road.

“There was a natural gas odor in the building,” said Superintendent of Schools Donna Morelle. “They did leave the building. I believe they were out of the building for 90 minutes.”
The smell, according to officials, was caused by a small leak in a boiler. A three-inch compression fitting for the boiler's pilot valve had come loose.
“With compression and expansion, it's normal for one (a fitting) to get loose,” said Lt. Jim Bardsley of the Valley Falls Fire Department. “It had loosened and needed to be tightened. National Grid was able to repair it.”
Firefighters also found no hazardous levels of gas, said Bardsley.
Uncertain about how long it would take to repair the fitting, school officials planned to send students to Joseph L. McCourt Middle School for the remainder of the day. Those plans changed after National Grid detected the source of the smell.
“We were making arrangements to move them to McCourt Middle School,” Morelle said. “When we knew they could repair it, we made arrangements to return the students to the school.”
Students were able to re-enter the school building around 12:45 p.m.
Lunch was served, but delayed a bit. Students were dismissed at the regularly scheduled time.
Using ConnectEd software, school officials were able to notify parents immediately by phone and e-mail.
“I sent out a ConnectEd message to all emergency contact numbers to indicate there was a gas leak and students were evacuated,” Morelle said. “Things worked very well today. We practice evacuations as required by law on a regular basis. Throughout the entire time frame, students were safe and well supervised.”
Responding to Garvin Elementary School were members of the Cumberland, Valley Falls, North Cumberland and Cumberland Hill Fire Districts.
Lonsdale Fire Department manned the Valley Falls Fire Station.