Tuesday morning, April 30, a ruptured gas line along Elm Avenue between South Taylor Street and South Franklin Street led to the evacuation of town offices and businesses along Brooks Street and the closure of Elm Avenue.
With the memory of the gas-leak caused explosion with loss of life and injuries in Durham only weeks past, Wake Forest firefighters and Wake Forest police officers moved people away from the danger zone.
The Wake Forest Town Hall, The Wake Forest Police Department, The Forks Cafeteria, the Wake Forest Renaissance Centre, Page 158 Books, Over the Falls, Brook Street Bowl, Dollar General and Arrow Tree Boutique were ordered evacuated. The Wake Forest Fire Department Station #1 almost directly across the street was not evacuated because, Assistant Chief Daryl Cash with the Wake Forest Fire Department said, the gas “was going in the opposite direction.” They also did not have to evacuate the apartments behind the fire station.
Shortly before 9 a.m. an unnamed construction company called 911 to report their underground bore under Elm Street had hit a gas line. “They hit it up under the curb,” Cash said. Bill Crabtree, the town’s communications and public affairs director, said the rupture was between the first and second street lights after the intersection.
At 9:09 a.m. Crabtree sent out an email notice that a portion of Elm Avenue near South Brooks Street had been closed, that no evacuations had been ordered and that PSNC (now Dominion Energy NC) had been contacted to seal off the leak.
By 9:26 a.m. Crabtree was reporting that the evacuations had been ordered.
At 11:19 he was able to report the gas leak had been sealed. The evacuation order had been lifted by then for the town hall, the police department and The Forks Cafeteria, and the evacuation order for the Renaissance Centre and the other businesses in Renaissance Plaza was about to be lifted.
It was mid-afternoon, 3:23 p.m., before the portion of Elm Avenue from South Taylor to South Franklin was reopened.
A spokesperson for Dominion Energy said Wednesday afternoon, “We will not be disclosing the name of the contractor that damaged our line at this time.”
Cash said the evacuation, securing the area and other activities around the leak were a joint operation between the fire and police departments. When a Dominion Energy crew arrived, they shut the gas down on both sides of the leak before making the repair. The fire department did monitor the evacuated buildings with gas meters before allowing people to return.
