Residents near the intersection of Main and High Street were evacuated due to a gas main break at South Main Street on Wednesday morning, at around 10:40 a.m.
The Glassboro Police and Fire Departments were on the scene to secure the leak after construction workers had struck a six-inch gas line in the road. The leak was contained two hours after the fire department arrived, issuing an all-clear, according to Jack Manning, the Municipal Coordinator at the Office of Emergency Management in Glassboro.
“Utility workers struck a gas line,” said Glassboro Fire Department Captain, Mark McEvoy. “After the gas was secured, all the houses in the immediate area were checked in case they were full of gas, then all the residents were allowed back in.”
“We don’t expect [another gas leak],” McEvoy said. “These kinds of things happen without warning and this is how they usually go. Luckily, nothing bad happened.”
According to a press release provided by Glassboro’s Office of Emergency Management, 12 residents were evacuated from their homes as well as the Glassboro Child Development Center, since they were downwind from the ruptured mainline.
“The police came, then we got our things and we left,” said Sue Flynn, the secretary of journalism at Rowan’s Journalism Department, whose location on 6 East High Street caused an evacuation.
