GAS LEAK FORCES EVACUATION OF 8 HOMES IN HYDE PARK NEIGHBORHOOD IN
AUSTIN, TEXAS
Updated: Sunday, January 4 2015,
09:02 AM CST
People are now allowed to go
back into their homes in the Hyde Park neighborhood in Austin, Texas. A gas
leak forced about 8-homes to evacuate on the 45-hundred block on avenue.
“We didn’t know what was going
on," says Brittany Linton. Linton and her wife heard commotion outside her
home last night and then got a knock on the door. “We were informed that we had
gas in the middle of the street and that it had the potential to explode."
Says Linton.
Texas gas service evacuated 8
homes as a safety precaution due to a gas leak. Texas Gas Service Spokesperson,
Christy Penders, says a ruptured water line may have caused damage to the gas
line. "The line was in good condition until the pressure from the
water," says Penders. Linton says “when we left our house it reeked of
gasoline the moment you stepped outside the door, it was even filtering into our
home so we got a little lite headed in the 15-minute window that we were
there."
Texas Gas Service restored gas
to the main line after 4pm but getting service restored to each individual home
will take longer since it's done on a home by home basis. “We’ll do checks of
the meter and then we’ll also go inside the home, it’s part of the normal
process, we’ll check every appliance and every valve in the home to make sure
it’s safe.
So it’s going to be a fairly
long process still at this point," says Penders.
As for Brittany Linton,
she appreciates the initial response, “I do appreciate them quickly getting us
out of the area, and otherwise we would have sat at home eating dinner and had
no idea this was going on.”