Greek students evacuated after early morning wreck

Arminta Gunkel was still dressed in her pajamas as she dragged herself down the back stairs of the Phi Mu house at 6:30 a.m. Woken by a fire alarm, she had no idea she was walking directly toward a 2,000-pound chemical spill of ammonia nitrate. \n"We started going down the back stairway," Gunkel said. "I thought it was a fire drill. Then everyone stopped and said go out the front door. We turned around and someone said to go to Assembly Hall. I didn't have time to grab anything."\nPhi Mu housing director Linda Howard and her dog Scout were already up when the spill happened. The two were walking behind the 45/46 Bypass when they heard the sirens. Howard saw a policeman pounding on Phi Mu's front door, and she chased him down.\n"He said 'You've got to evacuate,'" Howard said. "I went inside and told the girls, 'Get your shoes if you can. Let's get out of here.'"\nPhi Mu was the first house evacuated. Up and down the Jordan extension, fire and police officers roused students out of bed and ordered them to leave the area.\nAt the Sigma Pi house, firemen walked through the hallways pounding on doors. The noise woke senior Nick Lagina.\n"The fire department said there was an over-turned truck with potential explosives that flipped over on the bypass," Lagina said. \nOne of the firemen told him, "It's behind Phi Mu, so you need to get out fast." \nPhi Mu is two houses down from Sigma Pi. Lagina said one of the brothers went downstairs and pulled the fire alarm to wake anyone that hadn't heard the pounding on the doors. \nBy 7:30 a.m. students wrapped in blankets were spilling out of their houses. They pieced together that a semitruck carrying chemicals and explosives had crashed on the bypass. \n"We didn't know what was going on," said Phi Mu junior Miriam Sheinin. "We were curious why we had to drive away. We saw lots of firemen coming to all the fraternities and sororities." \nThe police department told fleeing students that Assembly Hall would be opened. Sheinin, Gunkel and four others from the house drove to the stadium.\nAt Assembly Hall, IU administrators announced that the clean-up and evacuation would last all day. To cheers, classes would be optional. Most students found other places to go. \nGunkel and her friends left Assembly Hall and headed over to Gunkel's family's home on North Kinser Pike. \nPhi Mu Lauren Hanrahan checked IU's Campus Emergency Web site for updates. At 11:30 a.m. she read, "Hazmat crews are working at the site to remediate the spilled chemicals...no time frame for completion has been announced."\nThen at 1 p.m., "Crews are working on righting the truck and removing it from the scene. Officials on the scene still are not making an estimate of the remaining time required to complete the cleanup and reopen the area."\nGunkel made her friends sandwiches and pasta while they waited. They played a lot of monopoly and watched "Saved by the Bell" reruns and The Learning Channel.\n"It's been a long boring day," Gunkel said. "We've been checking the Internet to find out when we can go home. It's frustrating that every time we check they keep pushing it back farther."\nThe Sigma Pi's made the most of their day off. To celebrate the end of the I-Core test week, one live-out house bought two pony kegs.Several evacuees showed up at the house. \nJunior Brian Healy said that guys ended up at the house because they needed somewhere to go, and it just turned into a little party.\nAt 2:30 p.m., Gunkel received a call saying the chemicals had been cleaned up and the evacuation was over. Nine hours later and still in their pajamas, they returned to the Phi Mu house.\n"I'm tired," Gunkel said. "It's been a long day."\nSheinin missed one test that she said she would reschedule.\n"It's fun because we aren't in school, but it's a burden because of the holiday coming up," Sheinin said. "It was more of an inconvenience than people would think, you know, a day-off school."\nHoward was relieved that the crews cleaned up the toxic spill. She said IU was lucky it didn't have a catastrophe on its hands.\n"This could have been another Oklahoma City," Howard said, referring to the ammonia nitrate.\n"I'm glad everyone's safe and sound. You can throw a rock back there. It's that close."\nStaff writer Ryan Lengerich contributed to this report.