Gas leak evacuates 10 Pickering homes

PICKERING -- A gas leak on Sheppard Avenue in Pickering Thursday afternoon caused residents to evacuate their homes for more than five hours, a City official said.

Everett Buntsma, division head of municipal property and engineering, said about 10 homes were evacuated yesterday after contractors re-paving Sheppard Avenue at Old Forest Road punctured a gas stub on the top of the pipe. The pipe was only about eight inches underground.

“It really should be much deeper than that,” he said.

It was a 12-inch high-pressure gas line so “it was leaking pretty good.”

The call came in to the Pickering Fire department at 4:27 p.m. and the first fire truck was on the scene at 4:31 p.m. Residents were evacuated immediately and returned to their homes between 10 and 10:30 p.m.

“All the people were pretty calm about it all,” Mr. Buntsma said.

The City is meeting with Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc. next week to see how such an issue in the future can be avoided.