By Rebecca Beilinson

Around 8:30 am on the morning of Monday, November 8^th, the PHS fire alarm went off. Students and teachers poured out of the building—and into sleeting 37-degree weather. After huddling together outside for a little less than 20 minutes, all students were led back into the gym, where they waited until eventually returning to their classes around 9:05, many with dripping hair and wet clothes. Much confusion and quite a bit of complaining followed throughout the day—why had the alarm gone off? What took so long?

To straighten this out, the Phoenix talked to Mrs. Rodrigue, who explained exactly what happened last Monday. According to her, a nearby transformer in Southbury blew up earlier in the morning, causing local power surges that ended up triggering Pomperaug’s alarm system.

At first, the cause of the alarm was unknown. She says, “When you have an alarm go off that isn’t pulled and isn’t a fire drill, that means there’s something wrong. So what happens is that you cannot reenter the building unless you’re given approval by the fire marshal.” The fire marshal, however, was at the scene of the transformer, where a fire had started. The police officer that came to PHS didn’t have the authority to allow students back into the building, and so students were stuck in the inclement weather for some time. “No principal is allowed to make a determination [about returning to the building after an alarm] by law,” Mrs. Rodrigue explains. “You can’t do that unfortunately. I brought the police officer to the panel and he was trying to get authority to at least bring the students into the gym.” However, since the fire marshal and firefighters were still at the other fire and didn’t know what was wrong, they didn’t give authority. Eventually, Mrs. Rodrigue decided to bring the students back into the gym anyway. “I was stuck between a rock and a hard place seeing all the bad weather. I just couldn’t stand one more second of it!” she explains. “So I brought [staff and students] in anyway and the fire marshal arrived shortly thereafter.”

As the ice pellets melted out of their hair, students returned to class—shivering but safe.