Minneapolis fire crews responded Wednesday to a carbon dioxide leak that forced the evacuation of students and staff members at the Bell Museum of Natural History.
About 11:15 a.m., four fire trucks arrived at the museum as police cars blocked off surrounding roads. Firefighters evacuated the museum and stopped the leak, said 3rd District Battalion Chief Todd White.

Firefighters donned air packs and used special equipment to stop the leak, said Alison Falldin, a visitor service specialist for the museum.

“There was a haze and mist in the air,” she said.

Fans might be used to help ventilate the building, Falldin said.

The museum has a system located in a secure storage room in the basement that releases carbon dioxide to remove oxygen from the air.

The system helps preserve artwork in the building, said University Police Sgt. Brad Herberg.

Three out of four tanks leaked carbon dioxide, said Brad Hoff, Facilities Management’s communications director. There was no fire and officials are investigating why the leak occurred, he said.

Herberg said that though he doesn’t know how dangerous the gas was, “you don’t really want to breathe it.”

An organic chemistry test interrupted by the leak was not canceled, said Youa Xiong, a biology junior. The test was moved to Nicholson Hall.

A leak like this has never happened at the museum, Falldin said, adding the building has 30-year-old pipes.

Nina Shepherd, Bell Museum public relations director, said the museum is hoped to move to the St. Paul campus by 2010.

“The current building, which opened in 1940, really falls short of what visitors expect from a contemporary museum,” she said.

Shepherd said the museum does not have a large lobby, large galleries, open reception areas or air conditioning.

“It seriously limits what we can do,” she said.

We still weren’t allowed back in by 1pm, so I left for class early. Today I hope I can get all of yesterday’s work done, as well as today’s (which means I should probably not be blogging). I am getting a haircut at 2:30pm, so it’s another short day.

Also of note, a respectable-seeming dude on the street this morning told me that I look magnificent. I approve of his vocabulary choice.

On Saturday, Karyn and Bryan joined me at the strangest Plastic Chord show. It was a disorganized kick-off party for radio station WMCN at Macalester College. At first there was plenty of feedback and no microphones, but Plastic Chord pulled through and rocked the basement of a dormitory somewhere in St. Paul.

i have class tonight. i will be staring at computers for too long today. maybe tomorrow i can find work away from my desk.

anyway, i do have photos from the weekend and updates and all that awesome stuff, but i am currently importing music on my laptop and that is where the photos are and everything gets all slow and dumb if i do everything at once. please be patient.

i just realized that although i have about a billion awesome musical stylings on the compy, i have not loaded my favorite cds yet. and by favorite i mean cds i never want to sell. this includes at least 22 nine inch nails cds.

i used to be goth and listen to industrial music. now they just sit there, but i’m so proud of my collection. it cost a lot of money and time.

i am rambling. maybe i will go find a cookie to eat. i’ll post photos later.

ER is still better, though.