Updated: Gas Leak at Easton Middle School

Easton emergency officials said Tuesday that construction to a light post at caused a gas leak that took three hours to eradicate.

Easton Fire Captain James Walsh said workers were replacing a light post behind the middle school Tuesday morning when a backhoe struck the gas main, causing a leak. While no school was in session because of April Vacation, bus drivers in the trailer behind the school were evacuated for safety purposes.

“They were replacing the light pole over by the buses,” said Walsh. “They were working with a backhoe and it caught the gas main, so we had a pretty significant gas leak with a ruptured gas main.”

Walsh said that after evacuating the immediate area, fire officials informed Columbia Gas Company. Luckily, he said, wind was blowing towards the woods away from the school, which made for a safer situation. Residents were present on the larger campus, including an JV softball game behind School.

“The biggest problem we had was it took them about three hours to shut the gas line off,” Walsh said. “They had trouble finding the gas shutoffs.”

He said fire officials used gas meters to check inside the school and in the water pipes for presence of gas and all checked out.

He said the direction of the wind and April Vacation made for a much smoother situation.

“There was no school so we didn’t have to worry about that,” he said. “There wasn’t too strong of a wind and it was actually blowing towards the woods away from the school.”