Major gas leak in South End Halifax contained

Above: Halifax Regional Police Const. Pierre Bourdages addresses reporters as crews tried to control the gas leak in South End Halifax.

HALIFAX – Police blocked off an area of South End Halifax Tuesday morning because of a major natural gas leak.

Halifax Regional Police Const. Pierre Bourdages said a gas line was punctured, in the vicinity of South Park Street and Fenwick Street, at around 9:36 a.m.

Heritage Gas crews were able to stop the leak at around 11:00 a.m.

Authorities closed off the area between Tower Road to Queen Street and Victoria Road to Morris Street to all pedestrian and motor traffic.

Fire crews went door-to-door in the affected area – approximately three city blocks – telling people to leave their homes or, in some cases, shut down their HVAC systems and stay inside.

Police also stood guard at intersections, telling passers-by to steer clear until the area was secure.

Some, however, weren’t sure if ‘steering clear’ was an option.

“I just got word about the natural gas leak and I heard that they’re evacuating all the houses and my dog is currently stuck in the house where they’re not letting me in,” said Brandon Lau.

Bridgette Sullivan was trying to walk down South Park Street after losing power in her office building at Spring Garden and Robie.

“I just came from Toronto where my power was out last week, from the big storm last week, so it’s kind of following me around Canada, so I’ll just have to walk around,” she said. “It’s a pretty big inconvenience.”

The area has since been cleared and officials allowed residents to return by mid-afternoon.

N.S. Power shut down electricity in the South End, cutting off power to approximately 7,300 customers, while crews worked to control the situation. The utility restored power to the area by 1:00 p.m.

The Victoria General Hospital (VGH) and the IWK Health Centre, switched emergency power, while the Halifax Infirmary is running on regular power using an alternate feed.

The switch to back-up power did cause one issue at the IWK.

“The IWK, believe it or not, we’ve had an incident with an elevator, where we had people trapped, so we have people working on that as well,” says HRM Fire Executive Officer Phil McNulty. The people in the elevator were eventually freed and were unharmed.

While gas leaks aren’t uncommon — in fact, there was another one in the Gaston Road area of Dartmouth later in the day — one of this size and in a neighbourhood this busy attracted the attention of HRM Mayor Mike Savage.

“I just came to see that everyone is working well together which they seem to be working well together,” says Mayor Mike Savage. “We’ve got the right people at the right place doing the right things.”

In all the response was considered swift and accurate.

“It was a serious incident. So, that is why we did evacuate the three blocks, there was gas in the air,” HRM Fire Chief Doug Trussler said. “It was volatile to some degree.”

Trussler said there were no injuries as a result of the leak.