Downtown roadways back open after gas leak, businesses still wit - Tri-State News, Weather & Sports

Several downtown Toledo intersections had to be shut down because of a gas line rupture at Promenade Park Tuesday morning. All roadways have since reopened, but several businesses are still without natural gas service.

Summit Street was closed between Cherry Street and Monroe Street, and North St. Clair Street was shut down between Jackson Street and Jefferson Street for more than an hour Tuesday . 

The pipe has been sealed, but it still could be a few hours before gas is restored to all the businesses.

Among those without gas service is the Park Inn hotel. Hotel employees say they are dealing with the lack of gas service as best they can.

"We had a few customers in the restaurant that could not order hot food. We just had salads that we were able to serve them. Our common areas are heated by boiler so those are going to start cooling off here in a little bit, and dryers in our laundry are not heating as well," said Park Inn Human Resource Director Stephanie Korzec. "We can't use space heaters and things of that nature because it is against code, so we just have to wait it out. Maybe we could not open doors as much to keep the heat in, but other than that there is not much we can do."

Representatives of Columbia Gas says they worked to fix the problem as soon as possible, but the process of controlling a ruptured gas line can be a long one.

"In a situation where there is an outage, unlike an electric outage where you can just turn a switch back once wires are connected, natural gas outage you need to go door to door, eliminate all the service, purge the lines, re-introduce gas and then light all those pilot lights back up," said Columbia Gas spokesman Chris Kozak.

Columbia Gas says service should be restored to all customers around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

TARTA bus service in the area was also interrupted by the leak. Crews are still working to determine what caused the line to rupture.

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