{"id":16209,"date":"2025-10-09T23:28:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T23:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gas-leak-at-cortez-middle-school-prompts-evacuation\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:55:13","slug":"gas-leak-at-cortez-middle-school-prompts-evacuation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gas-leak-at-cortez-middle-school-prompts-evacuation\/","title":{"rendered":"Gas leak at Cortez Middle School prompts evacuation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=020b77b4-df48-5daa-85bc-99d1791353b0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1369\" alt=\"Cortez Middle School on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 9, after a reported gas leak. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Cortez Middle School on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 9, after a reported gas leak. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>A small gas leak at Cortez Middle School prompted an emergency evacuation of students and staff Thursday afternoon ahead of a parent-teacher conference.<\/p>\n<p>Justin Schmitt, RE-1 executive director of academic services, said staff noticed a gas odor earlier in the day. An investigation by maintenance staff found an active gas leak, prompting an immediate emergency evacuation of students and staff.<\/p>\n<p>Parents were notified around 1:20 p.m., with transportation coordinated to take students home and staff prepared to assist with student pickups, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are releasing students to go home at this time due to a potential gas leak,\u201d read a post made by the Cortez Police Department at 1:25 p.m. \u201cWe have buses heading to the school now for bus riders. Parents that drop off please come pick up your students at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone acted professionally and responded expediently to make sure the kids and staff were safe,\u201d Schmitt said.<\/p>\n<p>Schmitt attributed the smooth handling of the emergency to a well-trained staff and a tightly coordinated network of first responders.<\/p>\n<p>The school held an annual public safety training with regional fire departments, the Cortez police and the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office only weeks before the gas leak occurred, Schmitt said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat led to our ability to respond quickly to this situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Schmitt said the leak was resolved and the evening parent-teacher conference would proceed as scheduled, allowing time for any remaining gas to dissipate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a dramatic amount that was coming out,\u201d he said of the leak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Executive director applauds swift emergency response<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20074,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209\/revisions\/20074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16209"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}