Campus Alert Archive
MIT

Containment Failure Beneath the Great Dome: A 7:30 PM Spill That Emptied an MIT Lab Building

MAchemical spillemergency notificationmedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

On the evening of February 13, 2019, a chemical spill in a second-floor laboratory in Building 13 at MIT — adjacent to the iconic Great Dome — triggered the evacuation of the building. Cambridge Police described the incident as a 'hazardous materials situation' that may have been exacerbated by a containment system failure. Cambridge Fire HazMat responded; no injuries were reported, and occupants evacuated without an MIT Alert.

Alerts
3
Response
—
Killed
0
Injured
0
Institution
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Private R1 · MA
~11,500 studentsMIT Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

3 messages in sequence

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTPhone
Approximate reconstructionReconstructed from Cambridge Police spokesperson Jeremy Warnick's statements to the Boston Globe245 chars
Hazardous materials incident, Building 13 second floor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Possible containment system failure in a research laboratory. Building self-evacuating. Cambridge Fire HazMat responding code 3. No injuries reported.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Cambridge Police described the incident as 'a hazardous materials situation' that may have been 'exacerbated by a containment system failure'
Building 13 (the Vannevar Bush Building) sits at 105 Massachusetts Avenue (Rear), behind the iconic Great Dome, and houses MIT's Center for Materials Science and Engineering
No public MIT Alert was issued; building occupants evacuated independently after noticing the spill
UPDATETwitter/X
Approximate reconstructionReconstructed from MIT spokeswoman comments to the Boston Globe and the typical format of MIT campus advisories206 chars
MIT Building 13 has been evacuated as a precaution due to a chemical spill on the second floor. Cambridge Fire HazMat is on scene. No injuries have been reported. Please avoid the area until further notice.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

MIT confirmed the incident publicly via media statement rather than an MIT Alert SMS, mirroring criticism of the alert system's gaps after the October 2014 Building 56 spill
Building 13 is part of MIT's central academic quad and is heavily trafficked even in evening hours
Cambridge Fire HazMat is a regional specialty unit that responds to all chemical incidents on the MIT campus
ALL CLEARTwitter/X
Approximate reconstructionReconstructed from Boston Globe reporting that the building reopened the same night175 chars
Building 13 at MIT has reopened. Cambridge Fire HazMat has cleared the affected lab. There were no injuries and no fires. Operations have resumed. Thank you for your patience.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

The Globe reported the building reopened later the same evening of February 13, 2019
MIT did not publicly disclose the specific chemical involved
The MIT Tech later wrote that the incident underscored the same MIT Alert gaps identified after a 2014 HCl spill in Building 56 — the alerts arrived after the incident was resolved
Context

Background

On the evening of February 13, 2019, at approximately 7:30 PM EST, a chemical spill in a second-floor laboratory in MIT's Building 13 — the Vannevar Bush Building at 105 Massachusetts Avenue (Rear), behind the Great Dome — triggered an evacuation. Cambridge Police spokesperson Jeremy Warnick told the Boston Globe the incident was 'a hazardous materials situation' that may have been 'exacerbated by a containment system failure.' Cambridge firefighters and the HazMat team responded. There were no injuries, no fires, and no explosions; people in the building had evacuated on their own before MIT issued any formal advisory. The building reopened later the same evening after the affected lab was cleared. MIT did not publicly identify the chemical involved. The incident drew comparisons to the October 2014 spill in Building 56 — a release of concentrated hydrochloric acid that The Tech reported was followed by an MIT Alert sent only after the incident had already been resolved, a delay that MIT subsequently acknowledged and worked to address. The 2019 incident illustrates the ongoing challenge of integrating lab-incident response into the campus emergency-notification framework: lab personnel typically respond to spills locally, with public alerts triggered only when an incident escalates beyond a single room.
Analysis

Key Findings

The spill was confined to one laboratory and did not require a public MIT Alert; communication was via media statement and social media
Cambridge Police's mention of a 'containment system failure' is rare public detail about why a contained spill became a building-wide event; MIT did not name the chemical
The incident replicated the pattern observed after the 2014 Building 56 HCl spill — local response, late or absent public alert, post-hoc media statement — illustrating the persistent gap between lab incidents and the Clery-mandated emergency-notification framework
Outcome
No injuries. Cambridge Fire HazMat cleared the building several hours later. The specific chemical was not publicly identified. The incident was reminiscent of an October 2014 chemical spill in MIT's Building 56 that exposed gaps in the MIT Alert system, as documented by The Tech.
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    MIT building reopened after chemical spill (Boston Globe)
    bostonglobe.com
  2. Student Paper
    Chemical spill reveals some flaws in MIT Alert (The Tech, October 2014 — comparative context)
    thetech.com
  3. Official
    Emergency Preparedness (MIT Biological Engineering)
    be-ehs.mit.edu
  4. Official
    Safety (MIT Department of Chemistry)
    chemistry.mit.edu
Tags
chemical-spillcontainment-failurehazmatbuilding-13mit-alert-gapprivate-r1mitself-evacuationgreat-dome
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion