Broken gas line causes trouble at mall
By Andrew Bell
Published in News on April 26, 2006 1:53 PM
Natural gas filled the air of the Berkeley Mall parking lot after construction workers at the Daniels & Daniels construction site in the mall parking lot penetrated a main gas line this morning.
It took workers more than an hour to close off the line, which was capped off at about noon.
Berkeley Boulevard was closed between Cashwell Drive to Langston Drive.
The N.C. Department of Transportation assisted in traffic control.
William Cummings, 48, a subcontractor with Daniels and Daniels, said construction workers were digging a trench and hit the gas line.
“They thought it was deeper than it really was and hit the line,” Glen Barnes, 34, also a contractor with Daniels & Daniels.
Once the gas line was hit, the site was cleared except for three workers on the roof. One of the first fire engines on the scene extended its ladder to bring the three workers off the top of the unfinished building.
Goldsboro Fire Department Assistant Chief Gary Whaley said he was told by Piedmont Natural Gas that it could take a while to fix the leak.
In the meantime, emergency workers kept an eye on monitors that measured the concentration of gas per million in the parking lot and in the stores. Northeast winds helped dissipate the gas, lessening the danger of ignition, they said.
A crew from N.C. Natural Gas was on the scene to shut down the line.
No injuries were reported, and the mall was not evacuated.