LAWRENCE, MASS. (WHDH) - LAWRENCE, MASS. (WHDH) – Frightened and frustrated residents in Lawrence are calling for Columbia Gas to be kicked out of the Merrimack Valley after a second high-pressure gas leak in a twelve-month span forced hundreds of residents from their homes early Friday morning.
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The embattled utility company shut off service to about 150 homes and businesses in the area of South Broadway and Salem Street around 3 a.m. after a gas line that was replaced following the 2018 disaster began leaking, officials said.
“This morning I get up, put the news on, and see this going on again. I have an 84-year-old mother with dementia at home. We did this the last time,” one disgruntled resident told 7’s Steve Cooper. “There is no excuse for this. Someone is not doing their job right. As far as I’m concerned, Columbia gas should be see-ya-later, bye. Shut them down, get a new company in Lawrence. We do not have to do this. We are taxpayers. We do not have to live like this.”
Crews isolated and ventilated the leak before anything tragic, such as a fire or explosion, could happen, officials said.
Nearly 1,500 residents were initially without power. That number has since dropped.
Two schools in the area were also closed due to the outage.
This gas leak comes just over a year after the Merrimack Valley gas disaster, which left one dead, dozens injured and more than 100 structures destroyed or damaged throughout Lawrence, Andover and North Andover.
“It’s ripping that bandaid off of that wound again and it’s really traumatic again for all of us,” one woman said. “I just have to keep telling my kids, ‘We’re safe, we’re safe,’ but really in my mind I’m like, are we really?”
John Farrington, the owner of Carleen’s Coffee Shop, says he no longer spends his nights sleeping in Lawrence but sympathizes with everyone who does.
“I don’t sleep here anymore, but for all the people who do, to be woken up gas again,” he said. “A lot of them still honestly have PTSD from this.”
The series of explosions and fires on Sept. 13, 2018, had been caused by a gas line that became overpressurized during a routine replacement of old cast iron pipelines.
Residents will be allowed back into their homes at 3 p.m., officials said.
An investigation into the cause of the leak is ongoing.
Anyone still in need of shelter should call: 800-564-1234.
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