On Mar. 5, multiple reports concerning a strong gas odor in and around Warrenton were made. The first reports were made at 11:55 am and grew rapidly, with over 300 reports being made by the end of the day. The many reports of gas odor led to many businesses closing for the day, the annex of FHS having to be evacuated and resulted in the closure of Fauquier High School (FHS) on Mar. 6.
The event has resulted in a lot of questions from the community, as well as people wanting more details on the situation. An over-odorization of gas is currently what’s to blame for the scent, but that still has made people ask why they were able to smell it if there was not a leak. Representatives of the Colombia Gas Company answered this and a few more questions Tuesday, Mar. 11, in a Warrenton Council meeting. Colombia Gas stated that they inspected properties where gas odor was reported, in a few of the properties minor prior gas leaks were identified, but nothing to cause any harm. If a leak was detected, they would then shut off the gas until further notice. Two FHS students, sophomore Caedmon Bauer, and senior Kasey Smith, both experienced gas odor within their own homes, leading to their gas needing to be shut off temporarily. “There wasn’t actually a gas leak at the house, they just smelled gas, so they shut it off for two or three days, so we had no heat, and I couldn’t use my stove,” Smith said.
Due to the magnitude of calls being made reporting the gas smell, units from multiple different fire departments needed to be called in to help. An anonymous Marshall Fire Department fighter provided some more information regarding the procedure following the calls. “Our first call was at [1:50 pm] and we alone ended up receiving 184 calls by the end of the day,” They said. Marshall wasn’t the only department unit that needed to be called from though, with units also having to be called from: New Baltimore, Lois, Remington, Loudoun and Orange County to stage out (temporarily hold resources from the immediate incident until they are needed) Warrenton. Fire departments have a specific protocol used in the event that there is gas being dispersed into the air. The anonymous firefighter said, “Once a gas leak has dispersed into the air, there is a protocol. If there is a call about a gas leak we have to stage an area away, we have to monitor going in and then we monitor the gas levels going into the building, and if there was actual gas going into the building, which in the school’s case here there was gas in the annex, we go through a process called off-gassing, which is where you set the gas on fire and burn it off.” The process of off-gassing was being used at multiple different locations and was carried out by the Colombian Gas Company until Mar. 14.
The possibility of an incident like this happening again has been another concern among citizens. An over-odorization was the reason the odor was so prominent, but there was also an over-pressurization in the lines which led to the FHS gas line bursting. “If they don’t monitor the levels or over-pressurize a gas line again, then yes it could happen … it was a complete and total mess,” said the firefighter.
There was a significant gap of time between updates from the Gas Company, leading to questions without answers in the first few hours of the incident. Another concern raised was that there was no apparent system in place to detect over-odorization, with Colombia Gas not being aware of the situation until customers started to complain, which has led to the Colombia Gas Company working on an odor detection system. The lack of an official statement has led to many details having to be spread by word of mouth. FHS Carpentry teacher, Jared Zangari, was one of the people who had to find out what happened on their own. “I was never officially told, it was more figuring it out by talking with different people, at the time all I heard was that people were smelling gas, and I thought that it must’ve just been a smell blowing through, but walking through the annex afterward, you definitely could smell the gas,” he stated.
The situation has shown some of the flaws in Colombia Gas Companies system, like the lack of urgency in updates, or lack of knowledge of the over-odorization. Their recognition of these flaws in the systems, however, could also lead to a safer management of the gas lines, which will hopefully prevent something of this nature from happening in the future.
