Sinkhole Hampers Campus Heat

As a result of gas line work, the cafeteria served lunches prepared across town at Miramonte from March 13 to March 15.

“PG&E cut off our gas service because of the sinkhole and broken gas line down at the corner of Center and Rheem,” said Principal John Walker. “The building that includes the cafeteria, the choral room, and the instrumental music room have both gas and electric utilities, but the kitchen cooks with gas. So they had food prepared at Miramonte brought over, because we have to be able to provide brunch and lunch food. Miramonte still had gas.”

Cafeteria assistant manager Shelly Green added that the days without gas were “a little crazy.” She said, “We had to to go other schools to get certain stuff because we didn’t have gas and we couldn’t have certain food. We have to get [the food] up to a certain temperature to serve it.”

Walker added that teachers and students were also affected by the shut down because classroom heaters depend on gas.  He said that classes in the morning were in the low 50’s, “which is not ideal learning weather,” but the classrooms warmed up as the day went on. Some classes relocated to the cafeteria, which is heated by an electric system. 

Jill Langston’s art classes were among those that opted to use cafeteria. “It was about 47 degrees, so it was colder in here than it was outside,” she said. “And as I was getting ready, I just thought “Okay I can make one class maybe sit through it. It wouldn’t be very comfortable for them and it certainly wouldn’t be comfortable for me. Then we found out that the cafeteria was super warm. . . so we went and stayed down in the cafeteria.”

Langston added that her students didn’t seem to mind moving and that it was “kind of fun [and] a nice change of pace.”