Today, at about 1:30 pm, the guy with the Ditch Witch hit a natural gas main pipe. Must have been a main pipe, because the hissing sound was so loud folks heard it a block away.
This is a good time to run away, fast.
. . . the foreman ran to the site with this "OhMyGod" look on his face.
He should have been running FROM the site with the same look on his face.
We closed our windows, but the gas was in the air, everywhere. I still have a headache.
What I find really interesting is that nobody went door-to-door to tell people to leave. Nobody even called the fire department to have a truck nearby, just in case things went south.
Y'all are very lucky. The city probably didn't want to lose a fire truck.
Instead, they got a guy from Wisconsin Gas. He put on his flame-retardant suit, oxygen tank, some sort of face shield/helmet and other gear, and had him go down to check it out.
I wonder if he can even get life insurance? All that gear is just to boost his confidence a bit.
Have you ever seen what happens when one of those leaks ignites? If it happens fast, it's just like a giant torch. If enough gas leaks out and settles in the neighborhood . . . BOOM!!! Blows it all to hell. Many years ago, my grandpa's business blew up from a gas line leak outside the place. It blew up after the gas company came out to fix it. Several family members were seriously injured. As a result, I've always been wary of natural gas leaks and amazed by the complete destruction of buildings and sometimes whole blocks when conditions become right and something sets it off.
edited to add: if you ever find yourself in the presence of a gas leak, don't use your phone, don't turn off or on lights or appliances, don't smoke (you'd be surprised how many people don't think a lit cigarette will ignite a flammable substance), don't start your car, just get away on foot as fast as you can. The smelly additive in the gas is your warning; hearing a loud hiss should make the "holy crap" alarm in your brain go off; once the gas has accumulated in your home enough to cause a headache and other physical symptoms, you're in a really bad situation.
