A fire alarm sounded at Hildreth Elementary School Tuesday afternoon, and students were evacuated to the Bromfield School auditorium. An overheating electric water heater was spreading smoke in the HES kitchen, so school officials pulled the alarm for the sake of caution.
The problem was a small electrical issue, according to Lt. Andrew Perry of the Harvard Fire Department. Firefighters brought their powerful fans to the school and cleared the smoke from the building in about half an hour.
“The Fire Department was great,” HES Principal Josh Myler said. He also said the Bromfield School was “very welcoming.” Students returned to the building in about 30 minutes. Myler said the kitchen water heater was being checked out and seemed to be working well. Elementary students have already had some fire drills from their new building this year, so the evacuation went smoothly.
Several other buildings in the town center experienced electrical problems at the same time. An employee at the General Store reported the espresso machine and the oven were both out of service for a couple of hours Tuesday afternoon, but both seemed to be working normally on Wednesday. At least one home on Elm Street lost power. And electricians who happened to be working at the Congregational Church detected what they described as “a phase outage.”
National Grid was reportedly working on a pole in the center when the problems arose. Scott Farrar, the power company’s customer and community manager for this region, said the problem was “a blown fuse.”
