Oakland Schools, City Hall, Federal Building Evacuated Because Of Gas Odor
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- All Oakland public schools were dismissed Thursday after a strong odor of natural gas spread through the city, school district officials said.
Initially the school district only evacuated five schools in the West Oakland, downtown and Lake Merritt areas, but said at about 3:30 p.m. that all schools citywide, including preschools, will be dismissed.
Parents were asked to pick up their children as soon as possible.
School district officials said the smell appears to be a result of an incident at a PG&E facility. A fire dispatcher said the source of the smell appears to be in West Oakland.
PG&E officials said that they are investigating the source of the smell but have not determined where it's coming from.
PG&E spokeswoman Tamar Sarkissian said PG&E has received reports about the smell primarily in the downtown Oakland, West Oakland and Lake Merritt areas but PG&E crews are still working to determine its source.
City spokeswoman Karen Boyd said that City Hall, the Ronald Dellums Federal Building and other downtown office buildings were evacuated
because of the smell as of about 1:30 p.m. but the evacuation was lifted at about 2:30 p.m.
A BART dispatcher said that BART received reports of the odor from the 12th Street, 19th Street, Lake Merritt, West Oakland and Embarcadero stations.
The smell did not cause any disruption in BART service and the fire department checked the stations and everything there was deemed safe, BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said.
Alameda fire officials said that the smell was also noticeable in their city.
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