KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Firefighters went house-to-house Wednesday morning in the area near 29th and Holly after a four-inch gas main was apparently hit and began leaking natural gas.
Firefighters told FOX 4 that a four-inch gas main was somehow damaged and leaking. A fire official told FOX 4 the water department may have been doing some kind of repair in the area. However, that was not confirmed.
Fire crews began knocking on doors to shut off individual gas lines and test gas levels with the handheld monitors they now carry.
“”They’re going house to house checking levels, making sure they’re in a safe range. and if we have a reading of anything then they’re making sure that we don’t have anything problematic, making sure we don’t have any danger there,” said Battalion Chief James Garrett with the KCMO Fire Dept.
Dangerous levels of gas measure about 10 to 15 percent. They say their tests showed a one percent concentration of gas in the area.
Firefighters were following a new protocol for gas leaks, which was put into place after the explosion at JJ’s Restaurant on the Plaza in February that killed one woman. They were criticized for leaving the scene of the Plaza leak before Missouri Gas Energy had capped the line. The new protocol now means firefighters will stay at the scene until MGE fixes the leak and gas levels are not dangerous.
“We now make sure they have no readings whatsoever before we leave the scene, Garrett said. “We can never be too safe for citizens. As we look on that, and look back on that it makes us be more cautious. It makes us go house to house, again checking levels from various blocks and things of that nature,” said Garrett.
