MANSFIELD — A gas line behind the Longview British Petroleum station was struck today causing businesses in the area to evacuate around 8 a.m.
According to Mansfield Fire Chief Steve Strickling, the eight-inch gas line was hit by a private construction team while working on a water line repair project.
“They struck a Columbia Gas line,” Strickling said. “It’s blowing about 40 pounds of pressure.”
Strickling said the concern is the gas is flowing out directly over power lines, but there are no plans to turn off the power.
“Columbia Gas is isolating the leak. They have a valve they have to shut off on one side of it and have to crimp the line on the other side of it,” he said just before 10:30 a.m. “They are going to do that hopefully within an hour. Get the gas turned off, and hopefully fix the line.”
Businesses from Main Street to US 30, including BP and Sun Graphics, AirGas, and Kokosing’s asphalt plant, were evacuated, Strickling said.
“Other than that, most of the gas is going up and over (US) 30, fortunately it’s at a high enough pressure it’s not standing still today. The weather (51 degrees) is helping us today.”
Jon Walters, an employee at Sun Graphics on Longview was told to leave the business where he runs the printing press as a precaution against any possibility of ignition via the fumes from the gas leak.
“We were told we couldn’t start our cars and we had to leave the premises,” Walters said.
