A gas leak in downtown Warsaw Monday afternoon shut down North Lake and Main streets for almost half a day.
Warsaw Fire Department was on the scene from approximately 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. offering support and sweeping the area for natural gas levels. Main Street, from Buffalo to Columbia streets, and North Lake Street, from Center to Fort Wayne streets, was shut down from noon until past 1 a.m. today.
Shortly after 11:20 a.m. Monday, the WFD received a call of a gas leak in front of Reinholt’s Furniture on Main Street. The initial search for the source of the leak was unsuccessful.
WFD firefighters and Northern Indiana Public Service Company employees searched the area around the corner of North Lake and Main streets for the source of the leak. Multiple holes were drilled into the asphalt and concrete in order to test the levels of gas in the ground in an attempt to find the leak. Shortly after the leak, the manhole covers in the area of the leak were removed in order to ventilate the sewer.
“At one point the gas concentration in a test hole was between 80 and 100 percent,” said WFD Fire Chief Mike Brubaker. “At that point all the gas needs is an ignition source and we have a big problem.”
For much of the beginning of the leak, neither NIPSCO or WFD knew the extent of the leak or how far the barricaded perimeter needed to be. Brubaker put Winona Lake Fire Department on standby in case something else happened while they were on scene. While NIPSCO continued to search for the source of the leak, WFD firefighters went through businesses downtown checking gas levels and trying to determine which way the leak was moving.
After about two hours, WFD and NIPSCO determined that the leak was moving north along Lake Street, but could not determine how large the leak was. Shortly thereafter, WFD firefighters noticed that gas levels in Bodkin Abstract Co. were increasing. At 1 p.m. WFD began to ventilate the building to try to reduce the gas concentration in the building. Fifteen minutes later the building was cleared, and at 1:30 p.m. the power to the building was shut off.
“The levels of gas in the building were not extremely high but the longer the gas continues to leak the more of an issue it becomes,” said Brubaker.
After NIPSCO pinpointed the source of the leak to the corner of North Lake and Main Streets near the billboard on the Bodkin Abstract Co. building, they informed Brubaker that they would pinch off the plastic gas line and then attempt to dig in order to find the leak.
Both NIPSCO and WFD firefighters had to wait several hours in order for a representative from Turnkey Network Solutions in Indianapolis to make it to the scene. The Turnkey representative was contacted in order to locate two fiber optic lines under the road. One line belongs to Zimmer and the other is an international line.
“The reason why the fiber optics needed to be found was in order to prevent NIPSCO from damaging the lines when they begin digging,” Brubaker said. “The cost in order to replace the line could be in excess of $1 million.”
Additionally, NIPSCO had to call a specialized team from Goshen in order to find the leak and repair it.
At 3 p.m. NIPSCO began to dig for the source of the leak. By 3:15 there was no longer a threat from the gas leak because NIPSCO had shut off service to the area. WFD took WLFD off standby and went back in service at that time.
Angie Nelson, public affairs manager for NIPSCO, said that only one customer was shut off.
Further information on the extent or cause of the leak is unknown at this time.
