SUFFOLK, Va. — Students in Suffolk were evacuated from Elephant's Fork Elementary School a little before 9 a.m. when someone reported smelling gas in the building.
Suffolk Fire & Rescue got the call at 8:52 a.m., and teams were at the school in four minutes.
Students were sent outside to wait in school buses and parents' cars.
A firefighter figured out that the smell was coming from a broken HVAC unit.
Temperatures were in the low 50s in Suffolk Tuesday, making this one of the first days of the school year that the building would need heat.
Virginia Natural Gas said the school would need to be closed for a day, while they fixed the problem.
The city reached out to parents to let them know about the closure.