This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
About 10 people were evacuated Wednesday afternoon over a gas leak in Salt Lake City, and two homes remained evacuated Wednesday night.
Just after 1 p.m., the fire department received reports that a contractor, doing initial installation for fiber internet infrastructure in Sugar House, had struck gas lines near the 1100 East block of Warnock Avenue (about 2450 South), said SLCFD Capt. Davin Halvorsen.
The gas dispersed underground through sewer lines, Halvorsen said, and made the area unsafe for a couple of hours. The gas line that was punctured was 2 inches thick, said Questar spokesman Don Porter, and typically holds 35 to 45 pounds of pressure. The line was marked, Porter said, so under normal circumstances, the contractor would have been aware of its location.
Crews from the fire department began evacuating people from their homes before 1:30 p.m., and the evacuation area extended from Elizabeth Street to Highland Drive. More than a dozen residents live in the area, Halvorsen said, but many of those people were not home at that time of day.
Evacuations were lifted just after 5 p.m., Halvorsen said, after the leak was stopped and lines were replaced, but Porter said two homes near the line that broke remained in danger Wednesday night after sensors detected that there was gas in the ground below the houses. No one had been allowed back into those homes "just to be safe," Porter said.
Natural gas is "lighter than air," Porter said, so if it has an escape route, it will dissipate naturally. But Porter said he could not estimate when the two houses would be safe again.
Another Questar spokesman, Darren Shepherd, said a dollar estimate of the damage may not be released for a couple of weeks. Investigators were looking into it, he said Wednesday night.
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