The furnace company left late this morning (see a previous post for explanation). While re-arranging things for another service call coming up, I decided I would vacuum my furnace room of all the cobwebs, spiderwebs, and dust on the floor, then mop it. I grabbed a mini-shop vac and turned it on when in this confined furnace room. Well, it spun around in my hand from the wind blowing out and created a dust devil in that room (I envision spider-egg balls in my hair that I was trying to vacuum out of the window area). Right after that….. I smelled gas. I thought I blew out the pilot on my hot water tank. If you saw my furnace room and and how that hot water tank was situated, youd understand why I couldnt light it). I figured I should just call the gas company to come out and check it, and if it needed re-lighting, let them do it. If it werent for the smell of gas coming and going faintly, I wouldnt have thought anything of it. So, with the sun shining and a smell of gas in the house, I go upstairs where it gets stronger. Buy the time I got outside I realized that gas smell was coming from outside … where the construction company has been replacing a sewer system since March. Still unsure if I had blown out the pilot light with my tornado in the furnace room, I called Consumers Energy to report both the smell inside and outside. I explained the street was tore up and that it was very powerful. As I was on the phone, neighbors were coming out. The guy at the gas company told me hed have someone out within 60 minutes and I told him Id just call 911 because it was getting very strong and the workers just keep working. Before hanging up, the gas guy told me to stay out of my building and when outside not to start any cars outside where the strong smell was. In the meanwhile, Im watching dump trucks dumping dirt with the back gate scraping the concrete. Bulldozers were running back and forth not missing a beat. Cars were slowly passing. Kids were walking home from school and buses filled with kids were going by. I tried talking to one of the workers to ask about the gas smell and he motioned in such a way as to acknowledge it, but just kept working. He didnt say they were fixing it or had called anyone. After talking to neighbors, I decided to call 911. The fire dept got there about 5 minutes later just as the Consumers guy showed up and told me the construction crew found a gas line. I dont know what the fire department did, but they pulled out a hose and went into the hole with it. Maybe they were looking for bubbles with water, I dunno. Across the main road one guy came out into the street in white socks, with no shoes into the muddy middle lane where a lady was standing holding a slow sign. You could tell he was talking to her about the smell. Multiple Consumers Energy trucks were driving around the area, obviously after others called. Three of us went to see what the fireman standing on the sidewalk would tell us and he said it was a pretty big main they hit. I asked him what protocol was for a construction company that has such an accident. Is it up to the people to call the gas company and fire department or are they suppose to notify appropriate authorities? He said they could call Consumers or 911, but didnt answer as to whether they did. Maybe he didnt know. In any event, Im bothered by the fact that it seems this company did neither. It seems like common sense to use some precautions when hitting a gas main.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 20:32:40 +0000
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