FORT LAUDERDALE – Over 1,000 Sunrise Middle School students were sent home Monday afternoon after the A/C malfunctioned at the school.
South Florida saw a heat advisory on Monday with temperatures in the 90s, with “feel like” temperatures in the triple digits.
“I went to school and it was like super hot,” said student Santiago Sanchez. “I was sweating. My shirt is soaked right now,” he said.
Sanchez is enjoying the A/C in the car after he and some 1,200 students were sent home at noon. Two were taken to the hospital to be checked out.
“I feel like I was in a volcano,” said student Kendall Morris.
It’s a rough start to the school year. Oriole Elementary School also had a gas leak, sending an employee to the hospital as a precaution and at Cypress Bay High in Weston, there was another gas leak. It was the second one in less than 5 days.
“Was that still part of the original problem from Friday?” CBS News Miami asked Superintendent Howard Hepburn. “Yes, it stemmed from Friday,” he said. “How do we know this isn’t going to happen Tuesday or Wednesday?” we asked. “We have full confidence now that they’ve isolated the situation,” Hepburn said.
Hepburn said because of these recent gas leaks, the district will now look into getting carbon monoxide detectors.
“We also discovered that we don’t have carbon monoxide detectors in our, in our kitchens in our cafeteria. So what we’re gonna do moving forward, we’re working on getting the estimate to outfit all of our cafeterias and our kitchens,” he said.
Back at Sunrise Middle School students are glad to be out of the heat.
“I love the AC,” Student Daniel Gaitan said.
The district tells CBS News Miami that the problem at Sunrise Middle is fixed.
‘When they come back tomorrow morning, the building will be nice and cool and ready to go for instruction,’ Hepburn said.
