Leak forces 2½-hour evacuation
Staff writer
Residents of Homestead Senior Residences in Marion were evacuated for more than nearly three hours Tuesday after a city crew struck an unmarked natural gas line while replacing electrical equipment.
Electric crews were replacing leaning poles and moving transformers to the ground when a backhoe struck the line, city administrator Brian Wells said.
The work was part of an ongoing pole replacement around Marion.
Crews had used the city’s HydroVac to dig test holes and found nothing before using a backhoe for the larger excavation, Wells said.
An 811 utility locate also had been done, but the gas line had not been marked where crews were digging.
“They were digging an area they believed was safe to dig in,” Wells said. “Turns out that there was a gas line that nobody knew about.”
The line was struck on a city right-of-way adjacent to Homestead.
Police learned of the leak at 11:20 a.m. They helped notify residents and with evacuation, police Chief Aaron Slater said.
Resident Melvin Honeyfield said police knocked on his door and told him there was a major gas leak and that residents needed to go to the Sports and Aquatics Center.
“We just left and went over there,” Honeyfield said. “The ambulance came and picked up some people who couldn’t walk and took them over there, and everybody kind of walked over there.”
Three residents who were not ambulatory were taken by ambulance to the SAC, ambulance director Mickey Price said. No one required medical transport because of the leak.
The evacuation was precautionary because the leak was outside, although gas could be smelled at the door, emergency management deputy director Dan Schaefer said.
Emergency management brought water, electrolyte drinks, and snacks to residents at the SAC and to several who remained outside near Homestead.
Residents were allowed to return around 2 p.m.
“I think they did a good job,” Honeyfield said of emergency crews.
Homestead was the only property police knew to have been evacuated, Slater said.