Students at Norte Vista were forced to evacuate classes during 2nd period due to an HVAC malfunction. Students in Kyle Pattison’s U.S. history class were working on an assignment when they noticed the lights begin to flicker.

“About five minutes later, we started to smell something burning,” junior Genesis Munoz said.

When students noticed the smoke in the classroom, Pattison’s class was evacuated to the library.

“The problem started early with all sorts of lights going crazy in the room. I went next door, the room was fine,” Pattison said.

Confusion followed for the rest of the school when the fire alarms sounded, and many students thought that it was a false alarm. Senior Attendance Clerk Yvette Coronel put out an all-call to tell students and staff to evacuate.

“When we evacuated to the field, all I heard was people complaining about how cold it was and how people wanted to go home,” Munoz said.

When the evacuation was lifted, Principal Jason Marquez put out an all call to update students on the situation. An official from the city of Riverside informed him that a downed powerline from across the street on Crest Avenue caused electrical issues that impacted a motor in the HVAC unit in room 120.

“The root of the cause was a down powerline across the street, and they cannot leave that the way it is, it’s kind of dangling so they do have to fix that,” Marquez said.

The city needed to shut down the power to two thirds of the school for about ten minutes to remedy the situation. Power was restored and classes resumed without further incident.