Posted by Debra Katz, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Jan 10, 2013 at 5:04 pm

I thought I'd give an update with a little more information. The gas leak was on a 4" line and resulted when our contractor accidentally hit that line while working to tie-in a new gas main that had just been installed. Only one customer lost gas service and the leak was stopped by 3:30pm as indicated above and complete repairs are expected by 5:30pm. Fire trucks were called out when the incident first occurred---which is typical whenever there is a gas leak as a safety precaution, but there was no fire or explosion involved.

As background, I might add that the City has had projects going for several years to install hundreds of miles of new gas mains to replace aging pipes throughout the city. More details on this gas main replacement process are available at www.cityofpaloalto.org/utilityprojects

Debra Katz

Utilities Communications Manager