Where there’s smoke, there’s fire?

A big disruption occured yesterday in the cafeteria during lunch, causing some to evacuate preemptively. The fire alarms were then triggered by a false alarm.

August 17, 2023

Fredo Cendejas

Mysterious smoke appears in the cafeteria on Wednesday, August 16th. “I thought it was a false alarm, because now that I’m a senior, I got used to all the false alarms,” says Aida Perez, who works in the cafeteria and was an eye witness.

During the second week of school at Santa Maria High School, students and staff were enjoying their lunch break when the fire alarms began blaring. In the new building, the fire alarm was accompanied by a computerized voice directing people in both English and Spanish to evacuate.

At first, most people thought it was a false alarm, due to the large amounts of false alarms on campus in the past. But soon, they began to realize it was not an ordinary “false alarm” situation.

“

You could smell it all the way from the 600’s”

— Nathan Ochoa

Eye witnesses report that at first they thought it was a spray paint can rupturing. “Then I noticed that the lunch line was separating from where the smoke bomb was coming from,” says senior Rodrigo Garcia. Soon, students started evacuating once the smell became intolerable. “It smelled like fireworks,” stated senior Nathan Gomez.

“You could smell it all the way from the 600’s,” said senior Nathan Ochoa, who thought it might be a firework. Within the cafeteria, some were fed up with the constant drama of the school year. Employee Angie said, “Oh my God! We just started school and we already have this going on. Before the year ended last year, we were getting the lock downs, and now we start the year like this.” But things ran smoothly, considering the unexpected event.

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Two security guards quickly declared it was a false alarm, and radioed that information to the office. Mr. Campbell, our campus principal made an announcement over the PA stating that there was no fire and the cafeteria was closed, but we could go back to our lunch. Later, in a series of emails, he assured the staff that everything was fine and that the system would take a bit of time to reset.

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Brenda Guillen, Contributors

My name is Brenda Guillen and I am one of contributors for The Breeze. I am a Junior at Santa Maria High School. This is my first time being part of this school's journalism class and The Breeze 22-23. I am 16 years old. My birthday is in April, I'm an Aries. Incase you like those things. I started as a freshman on zoom, it wasn't how I thought my first year of high school was going to be like but it was one of those things that was outside our grasp. Being on zoom was a different experience to say the least. I have lived in this town all my life, it's truly home. In my spare time I like to spend time with my family and my 2 lovely dogs. I also do like to roller skate a bit. I'm not a professional by any means but it's a little hobby I like to do. I also enjoy painting and drawing a bit. I like expressing myself through different things. I like to go thrifting with my friends and just hanging out. I enjoy taking walks to clear my mind. I also do enjoy true crime documentaries and conspiracy theories. I also do like to reading. I'm very much introverted but maybe this will help me step out of my comfort zone a bit. Hopefully this year we can make The Breeze grow and encourage more people to join. We will try our best to update you guys on everything important that's going on around us.