Today's Negative Excitement

[Willa]

I noticed there was a backhoe parked across the street. I went outside in the front this a.m., just to check out what was going on down the street. Neighbours were standing around, and there were a couple of guys in safety vests from a tree company.

I thought I kept smelling natural gas. I did a few walks around the yard, sniffing, then spoke to one of the tree dudes. They were planting trees for the city (yet no one bothered to inform the property owners who suddenly had a tree in their yard = ???). The tree dudes also SEVERED A GAS LINE as the actual line location deviated from their map. The tree dudes said they had called the gas company to report this but no one had come yet to shut it off. A neighbour came and spoke to me, blabbing about her teenaged daughter. She mentioned that the sound I was hearing was the sound of the GAS ESCAPING ! ?

!?@#& *$^ !!!! ???? !!!!!

I asked if anyone had called 911 bout this ?

No one had.

More $&^@(** !!!!!

I went inside and called 911 !

Fire trucks arrived within a couple of minutes, the streets were blocked off, residents were told to evacuate to the next street over. On my end this meant some frenzied shoving of cats into carriers. carriers placed on my heavy duty cart, then standing around with howling, scared cats on a busy street.

Gas was shut off, tragedy averted.

This is what recently happened here in London. A drunk driver hit a gas meter, and 7 homes were completely destroyed(they had to be demolished after) in the explosion. Amazingly, no one was killed, though a dog died in the blast, and a fireman received serious injuries:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/vehicle-crash-london-explosions-dundas-woodman-1.5247707

With this in the recent memory - none of my neighbours or the tree guy bothered to call 911 ?!? The night the explosion happened, all the windows on the street shook - and we all felt the impact. The explosion location is about a 20 minute walk from here.

I'm really appalled by the stupid inaction, but grateful this was as bad as things got today.

Shaking my head into near whiplash.

[GinaC]

I am just so happy that you and your animals are ok, Willa!

[Willa]

I am just so happy that you and your animals are ok, Willa!

Thank you Gina. I spent a lot of the afternoon just feeling MAD. Like there's a serious, obvious, dangerous problem and no one was doing anything ? None of the cats were happy about their adventure. I was the only person on the street who took my pets (???).

I was madder than the proverbial wet hen !

I called the city, and went through several departments to report what happened. I am working on the exterior (will report on that another time). About 15 minutes after I got off the phone with the city, a City of London truck pulled up with the supervisor from the forestry division. She thanked me for reporting this.

The back story is this: the city employs some sort of subcontractors to plant trees on city property. Due to municipal weirdness, typically the city actually owns a portion of resident's front yards - like 9 feet from the street line. To me this is moronic. People plant lawns, make gardens, etc. and the city does not maintain this strip of yard/not your yard. In theory the city ownership is in case of infrastructure upgrades, street widening, etc. - which seldom happens. Anyhow.

Allegedly the homeowners were informed in writing about the tree planting, which they had the option to opt out of. I guess my yard was deemed tree-y enough as I did not receive this notice.

However - tree subcontractors are supposed to arrange locates ahead of time, on their bill. These subcontractors did NOT, despite using a backhoe to dig holes ! If I had not called the city, their breakage of the gas main would have never been reported, which is a real lapse in policy. It sounds like these particular subcontractors were known, and I guess had their privilege or contract revoked due to not having done locates. Like sheesh - this is basic good sense.

It took the gas company all afternoon into the evening to do the repair. One of the gas dudes described the tree planters as "cowboys" who were known to cut corners and not do locates.

The forestry supervisor was one of the first city people on the scene after the Woodman Ave. explosion. She told me that it was 12 minutes from the time that the gas meter was hit until the explosion happened. It was more than 20 minutes that the gas line on the street was spewing gas !

When the gas company dude came to turn on my gas again, I asked him about the explosion. He said he had also been on site the night it happened. He gave me an explanation that sounded like it was attempting to minimize the gas line rupture. He said that when the gas meter on the house was hit by the car, that the shut off valve was broken off, and the pressurized pipe was forced into the foundation of the house, and filled the house from the basement up with a large volume of natural gas. I asked him what actually ignited the explosion - and he said he didn't know but speculated that it could have been the pilot light from an older gas water heater, or another source of spark. His explanation didn't do much to quell my paranoia and angry relief.

[GinaC]

Here they really drum it into your head that you need to call before you dig. There are signs in the city offices everywhere I've lived, and I suppose there are some hefty fees if you do not call and wait for them to clear you and then you hit something.

Maybe this is the problem, there is nothing to stop people from not caring? I'm shocked at the ignorance and attitude of everyone in this story, just like you are!

[1918ColonialRevival]

Glad nobody decided to strike a match or drop a burning cigarette butt anywhere.

No offense, but your local city government (and the help they hire) there sound really incompetent. You all are about to give the Baltimore city officials a run for their money!

Unrelated to houses, but three weeks ago I got called for jury duty. I reported, signed in, and killed the whole day waiting to see if I would get called into a case. Fast forward to Thursday - I get a certified letter in the mail from the city saying I failed to report to jury duty and I was looking at 60 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. I had to take Friday off work to go sit in the jury commissioner's office to convince the clowns I had reported when I was supposed to.

[Willa]

Glad nobody decided to strike a match or drop a burning cigarette butt anywhere.

No offense, but your local city government (and the help they hire) there sound really incompetent. You all are about to give the Baltimore city officials a run for their money!

Given this rupture's proximity to a gas station, the negative outcome could have been catastrophic. Tree dudes were not even standing near the rupture, or even the ends of the block, warning people to not smoke. Many smokers live on the street (not me). It was like the tree dudes knew they messed up, then did nothing, as though that could absolve them of their moronic culpability. Meanwhile an extremely dangerous situation was escalating.

The gas company dudes complained about the tree dude's arrogance, when they showed up.

I can't believe there is no system in place that requires ANY gas line breakage should be automatically reported to the city.

That's super exasperating about the jury duty headache. I suppose they have video surveillance, so if your signing in and whatnot on the original day wasn't enough, that might be useful ? But what a stupid fight. Do they need more fine dollars or inmates ?

[mjt]

Due to municipal weirdness, typically the city actually owns a portion of resident's front yards - like 9 feet from the street line. To me this is moronic. People plant lawns, make gardens, etc. and the city does not maintain this strip of yard/not your yard. In theory the city ownership is in case of infrastructure upgrades, street widening, etc. - which seldom happens. Anyhow.

That ain't that weird, nor is it uncommon, really. It's a utility easement. You own the yard all the way to the street and are responsible for its maintenance, but the city and utility companies have an "easement" that allows them access to that part of the property. Typically the easement doesn't require them to replace/repair landscaping or hardscaping. It's not a big deal. Just don't put anything you cannot live without in the easement; they can cut it down if they need to and you have no recourse...

Before we bought our historic home, we built a McMansion in a new suburban development. It was on a cul de sac and had an additional utility easement that ran along the side property line. It was for the storm drains that ran between our house and the neighbor's from the street to the overflow pond behind our house. The busybody behind us called the city when I planted a River Birch in the easement. Within minutes of me getting the thing planted, a guy from the city showed up. I had a great chat with him about it. He confirmed that, contrary to what she thought, it wasn't "illegal" to plant in the easement; rather it is merely discouraged. They will only re-seed; they won't replace any trees, shrubs, etc.

[phil]

if you break a line the gas smells and it will disperse to the atmosphere. In order to become explosive it needs to be mixed with the right percentage of oxygen. It won't collect in the ditch for long because it is lighter than air so it will disperse.

It would be possible to light the gas at the source of the leak and that would make a big fire until it is shut off but to create an explosion like you describe and evidently imagine, You'd need a container. a house could be the container if it leaked inside a house this is more dangerous because in that situation you might reach the explosive percentage. as long as fresh gas flows in the line it replaces the oxygen needed for ignition. The gas in the line is not explosive without oxygen. If you shut it off and leave the end open at the break then you could have air mixing into the pipe between the valve and the break also that portion of line could then become filled with an explosive mixture of gas and oxygen (with the air coming in to the end of the pipe after it is shut off. )
maybe that's why they didn't rush to shut it off before doing the evacuation.
calling 911 was the right thing to do. evacuating the block was a valid precaution against possible danger.
If you have a tank or a pipe full of a flamable gas and you open it up, the gas will leave but then air will also enter, so it is possible to get the tank to the magic explosive percentage that way. once the gas and oxygen are present at that magic proportion , that is when you have the potential for not just a big fire, but an actual explosion.

if you let the gas go into the atmosphere. It is possible to reach that magic percentage near the source of the leak as the out-coming gas is mixing with air but it is a bit different when you contain the explosive mixture.. that's basically how your car works the spark plugs ignite explosions within the cylinders which drive the car. in the case of buildings or tanks exploding that is what you have, a container which holds the mixture and when that is ignited, the container bursts because the explosion is contained. now the casing is basically flying shrapnel.

in your case it was leaking outdoors, not contained. for this reason the potential was not as high as you might at first imagine. that might have led to a bit of an overreaction but I know better safe than sorry right?
since the leak was not in your house but down the street I doubt your kitty was in much danger. the fire crew assessed the danger and made a decision to evacuate some nearby houses but they knew where the leak was. they probably didn't want everyone collecting near the dig site but they also would know the potential for nearby houses to just start randomly blowing up was very slim to none although you could probably detect the sulfur smell a block away.


lighting it with a cigarette is likely near impossible , as an example try lighting your propane torch with a lit cigarette , you can use a spark or a lighter but to light it with a cigarette would be , not impossible, but difficult. If you walked near with a lit smoke , well that would be dangerous but it is not quite the same. it would be easier to light if you have an open flame or a spark such as you may have when lighting the smoke up. you could get the spark from when the bucket of the machine hit the pipe. a shovel hitting a rock can cause a spark.

a lit cigarette is still an ignition source and for example you can light a match or very dry materials and with just the right conditions you can turn that back into an open flame so I'm not saying it cannot be considered an ignition source or that you should go smoke near flammable materials. The lit smoke is an open source of ignition but it is a bit different than an open flame or a spark. as an example if you put a lit smoke into a container full of gas the gas will put the smoke out. like this:

https://www.newsflare.com/video/71407/s ... n-gasoline

if you filled a house with propane or LPG , got it to the right percentage with oxygen then it can be explosive. the same could happen with a different container like a tank. it doesn't happen often considering how common it is, but it is possible and it has happened and that sort of explosion can blow the walls right off the property. We had a house a few away from us that had an explosion like that. it was two stories and it blew the front door across the street and the basement walls were gone. the top floor fell down to street level. somehow they reached that magic percentage , maybe because a leaky barbecue or leaky gas can was stored in the garage.

the sulfur smell is added and that helps alert people when a leak is present. you can smell it at very low percentages and most know if you ever smell it then evacuate and call 911 to make sure the potential danger is handled properly.
so if the line were a propane line and not natural gas line then it would act differently and perhaps then the ditch itself would pose more potential as a danger, because it then may act as a container even though it would be an open container.


"Natural gas is lighter than air and
will dissipate rapidly if it escapes into the atmosphere.
This is in contrast to liquid petroleum gases, such
as propane, which are heavier than air and, when
allowed to escape, will flow downward and may pool
in low areas. "
- source: https://www.socalgas.com/documents/news ... Safety.pdf

[phil]

Unrelated to houses, but three weeks ago I got called for jury duty. I reported, signed in, and killed the whole day waiting to see if I would get called into a case. Fast forward to Thursday - I get a certified letter in the mail from the city saying I failed to report to jury duty and I was looking at 60 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. I had to take Friday off work to go sit in the jury commissioner's office to convince the clowns I had reported when I was supposed to.

I dont know if it's the same as here but here, they get that list from the voters list. then some have bad experiences and drop off the voters list and dont' vote because they dont want to do Jury duty again. I dont think that helps the voting system but it is our duty as citizens I guess. Ive been called twice, the first was a murder trial and I was not one who was chosen, the second time I served and it was Ok because I didn't loose wages, My employer covers that and it did not go on for days. you just lost time because of their bad record keeping and that sounds very frustrating. I noticed some "dressed down" for the pick hoping their choice of attire was enough to get them excluded.

[Corsetière]

Guuuuurrrrrrllllll... is it time for us to have another phone chat? lol!

Do you ever feel like you are the only adult on your street? I do...