YATESVILLE -- Pittston Area High School in Yatesville is about a mile away from where a fire broke out at a chemical plant Wednesday morning.
With the wind the way it was, you could smell the smoke quite easily.
It took school officials about a little more than a half hour to get all the students out of the high school and onto buses.
Students and faculty say that in some of the classrooms, you could smell the smoke from the fire coming through the vents.
The high school principal calls it a blessing that seniors had not yet reported to school for the day. They were scheduled to show up later, after the other students finished taking state tests.
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Students who had their own cars were allowed to drive home. The rest were put on buses after emergency dispatchers called the school and said to evacuate.
"911 advised us that they felt we should evacuate and when 911 says you should evacuate, we evacuate," said Pittston Area principal Kevin Booth.
"They announced that there's a fire and they called all the buses," said sophomore Bruce Zamudio.
"I guess it must be pretty bad if they are letting us out early," Alan Thomas, junior.
And that's why parents like Melissa Davis say they're relieved their kids were sent home.
"You could taste it," said Davis. "You could smell it. [It's] definitely not surprising because a lot of kids would have needed to go home if they didn't evacuate."
Just down the street from Davis and the Acton Technologies is Megan Curry. The mother of three was not told to evacuate, but says she was nervous when all the smoke came pouring in and instantly closed all of her windows.
"Everyone is very concerned with all the chemicals from the building and all the pollution that spread through the air, just because of the significant amount of smoke that filled the sky," said Curry.
Faculty and staff have also left the building for the day. The principal says they expect Pittston Area High School to be back open tomorrow as usual.
None of the other schools in Pittston area were affected by the fire at Acton Technologies.
