Small gas leaks found in more than 30 homes in Cranberry Township

Small gas leaks were found in more than 30 homes in Cranberry Township on Wednesday.

Cranberry firefighters along with crews from Columbia Gas spent hours going home to home in the Fox Run neighborhood checking for gas leaks.

“My wife was complaining about being nauseous and not feeling good and all of a sudden this afternoon, all we kept hearing was fire trucks going by,” said Jon Keplinger, who lives on Quail Drive.

Keplinger said his plumber found three leaks in his basement and he’s not alone.

“Just about everybody around here that they’ve gone in to check, they’re finding leaks,” he said.

Cranberry Township’s fire chief Scott Garing said they were flooded with calls from homeowners in the Fox Run Road area around 3 p.m. complaining of odors of gas coming from their basements.

He said a cluster of homes - around 35 or so - had gas leaks.

“We found that approximately half of them out of the 70 that we’ve gone to so far, we’ve had to shut the gas off in the home,” Garing said.

Fire Chief Garing told Channel 11 he’s never seen anything like this before, adding that this could have been dangerous if it weren’t caught in time.

“Gas being contained to a space is a definite concern,” he said. “If the gas is concentrated in an area for a period of time, it could cause an explosion.”

Mary Wehner was at work up the street when she smelled the odor and called her girls at home.

“She smelled gas. I called 911 and they were told to immediately get out of the house,” Wehner said. “It’s super scary. Very scary. For us all to have a gas leak problem now, Columbia Gas did something, and now we’re all footing the bill for our plumbers, which is not okay.”

Lee Gierczynski, a spokesman for Columbia Gas, told Channel 11 that technicians are investigating what led to the cluster of leaks. He said no gas lines were hit and there are no issues with pressure in the lines.

If you do smell a gas odor or a rotten egg smell in your home, the fire chief said to get out right away and call 911 or the gas company.

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