South Haven school leaders come together to evacuate employees from East Jordan Plastics fire

SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. -- The South Haven Area Emergency Services (SHAES) and neighboring fire and public safety departments responded to an industrial fire at the East Jordan Plastics Facility on Friday, Sept. 25 at 3:47 p.m.

Firefighters remained on scene until it was cleared Saturday, Sept. 26, at around 6 a.m.

But before crews arrived on Friday afternoon, South Haven Public Schools Superintendent Ana Aleman-Putman and Director of Transportation Dave Johnson received a call from the school resource officer requesting a bus to help evacuate the facility

They jumped in a school bus and drove five minutes up the road as quickly as possible.

Director of Transportation Dave Johnson says, "I don't think many people have done it, and so when she came down, I just said, "Let's go."

The employees were safely taken to South Haven High School where they were able to call their families.

But with the fire at East Jordan Plastics causing a city-wide power outage and concerns for air quality, South Haven Public Schools made the difficult decision to postpone their Homecoming Varsity Football Game.

It was senior night for South Haven and Constantine was already on the road halfway there when the decision was made to cancel homecoming festivities.

"At that point in time, also talking to the mayor, I'm talking to the city manager, talking to you know our resource officer, and it was like, yeah, we got to call this", Superintendent Ana Aleman-Putman says.

South Haven Public Schools did reschedule their homecoming game in Watervliet on Saturday, Sept. 26.  

The community still has many questions about what caused the fire and how firefighters were able to control it.

In a statement shared by the City of South Haven and South Haven Area Emergency Services, fire departments used approximately 2 million gallons of water to contain the fire.

While doing so, some water entered a city drain into a creek that empties into Lake Michigan.

But just like our first responders Director of Transportation Dave Johnson says, "when they pay their taxes and that they always think of you know that only goes to the school. But a lot of times the schools play auxiliary roles in the community that people don't necessarily think of. You know we were glad that we had a safe area to evacuate those workers to, and we had the busses and the you know the infrastructure that we could that we could jump in and do that, and that's something that people don't think about when they you know when they think of a school."