NTSB: Worker urged evacuation before Minnesota school blast
MINNEAPOLIS — A maintenance worker at a Minneapolis school that partially collapsed after an explosion earlier this month had smelled natural gas and used a radio to tell others to evacuate less than a minute before the blast, according to preliminary report released Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Two longtime school employees died in the Aug. 2 collapse at Minnehaha Academy.
The preliminary report doesn’t identify the maintenance worker who urged people to evacuate, but the school identified him as Don DuBois, a Minnehaha Academy alum.
The NTSB report said DuBois heard the release of natural gas and smelled it. He went to the school basement where contractors had been working on moving a gas meter, then ran back up the stairs and used a hand-held radio to tell others there was gas in the building and to “evacuate immediately,” the report said.