Gas Leak Along George Mason Drive — Part of S. George Mason Drive near Columbia Pike was closed this morning due to a gas leak. [Washington Post]
Blue, Yellow Line Delays — A “signal problem” outside of National Airport, the site of weekend track work, caused delays on the Blue and Yellow lines this morning. [Twitter]
Bethesda Has Most Expensive One-Bedroom Apartments — Bethesda has the highest median rents for one-bedroom apartments, at $2,270, according to a new report. “In comparison, D.C.’s typical one-bedroom costs $2,260 per month, while one-bedroom rents in Arlington, Virginia, cost a median of $2,140 per month.” [Curbed]
Remembering Hoover Field — A pair of airports, Hoover Field (later Hoover Airport) and Washington Airport, operated during the 1920s and 1930s on the site of the present day Pentagon reservation. National Airport was opened shortly after both closed down to make way for the Pentagon. [Paul Freeman, Twitter]
Best Places to Watch the Marine Corps Marathon — A number of Arlington locations are listed among the best places for spectators to watch the Marine Corps Marathon. [WTOP]
Update at 1:35 p.m. — The gas has been turned off and firefighters are leaving the scene. Any remaining road closures are expected to be lifted soon.
Earlier: A pair of busy roads are closed due to a major gas leak in a building in Courthouse.
Wilson Blvd is blocked approaching Courthouse Road and Courthouse is blocked approaching Wilson. The gas leak is reported in the building housing a number of restaurants, including the Afghan Kabob House, on the 2000 block of Wilson Blvd.
Firefighters are reporting elevated gas readings in the building’s basement, according to scanner traffic, and an “extended” ventilation operation is underway.
The gas leak was first reported around 11:30 a.m. Wilson Blvd is expected to remain closed until at least 12:45 p.m. Pedestrian traffic is also restricted near the scene.
(Updated at 3:40 p.m.) A construction crew hit a gas line in the Dominion Hills neighborhood this afternoon.
Trucks from the Arlington County Fire Department and Fairfax County Fire and Rescue responded to the 6000 block of 9th Road N. after reports of the gas leak just after 2:30 p.m.
According to scanner traffic, the crew hit a two-inch gas line while doing work on the road, but the gas leak was stopped within about a half hour, as police were preparing to evacuate homes in the area. The odor of natural gas was still in the air shortly after the leak was stopped.
Fire trucks and traffic cones blocked off 9th Road N. between N. Livingston Street and N. Liberty Street. As of 3:30 p.m., Washington Gas crews were on the way to make repairs.
Water main break in Highland Park-Overlee Knolls (photo by Mark Hand)
Water main break in Highland Park-Overlee Knolls (photo by Mark Hand)
Water main break in Highland Park-Overlee Knolls (photo by Mark Hand)
A majority of construction-caused natural gas line ruptures in Arlington occur despite excavators calling Miss Utility to locate underground utility systems prior to digging, according to the latest figures.
For fiscal year 2015, Washington Gas, the local gas utility that serves Arlington, reported 48 incidents of damage to its gas distribution system in the county. Of these incidents, 73% were caused by excavators, and, of those, 63% occurred despite the contractors calling Virginia 811, the state’s Miss Utility call center, prior to excavation, the utility said.
As recently as late July, a gas leak was reported on S. Fillmore Street in an Arlington neighborhood with a mixture of single family homes, duplexes and apartment complexes. Four blocks were shut down after the gas began to leak out. Reports suggested a construction crew working on the sidewalks ruptured a 3/4-inch gas line.
Digging damage to other underground utility systems like water mains and fiber optic cables also are common, though statistics on those incidents were not immediately available. Because of the combustibility of natural gas, utilities are required by the state of Virginia to keep records on gas line ruptures.
(ARLnow.com has reported on dozens of excavation-related water main breaks and gas leaks over the past 6.5 years.)
Employees with Arlington County’s water and utilities division ruptured a water main on Aug. 30 as they were doing excavation work on a residential street to connect a new water pipe to a house undergoing major renovations, causing an eight-hour water outage in the Highland Park-Overlee Knolls neighborhood.
The rupture occurred even though surveyors had come to the 22nd Street N. site prior to the excavation work to spray paint yellow, blue and other colors marking where underground utility systems were located.
The markings showing the location of the underground water main that serves a portion of the neighborhood were not accurate, according to county workers at the scene. The colors indicating the existence of an underground water line appeared to be at least three feet from where the water main was actually located.
Frustrated by the water main rupture, the workers complained that the mapping of underground utility systems is routinely inaccurate. Arlington County uses a contractor, Double H. Locates LLC, for locating and marking of the county’s water mains, sanitary sewers, storm sewers and county fiber optic lines prior to excatvation. For natural gas lines, Washington Gas contracts with UtiliQuest. Double H. Locates did not return calls for comment about the water main rupture.
“Most of the time our markings are accurate, but occasionally there are errors,” Arlington County Chief Support Engineer Dave Hundelt said about the water main damage. “We need more time to investigate this particular instance, but if we hit a utility that was marked, mismarked or unmarked we report it to that utility company and work with them to coordinate repairs to our respective utilities to get customers back in service as soon as possible.”
The science of locating underground utility systems using remote-sensing instruments and maps provided by utilities remains very challenging, even for the best firms, according to Michael Maguire, president of Accurate Infrastructure Data Inc., a Baltimore-based company that provides underground utility investigation, subsurface utility engineering, surveying and mapping services.
These locator companies recognize their work is not foolproof.
“The underground is a complex environment,” Maguire said. “The congestion of underground utilities or the weakness of the conductor that represents the underground utility line can lead to less-than-fully accurate locations. Even under the best of circumstances, with the most diligent practitioners in the field, you can get misled. You can get fooled and end up with a location that’s not a correct depiction of where the utility actually exists. There are those practitioners who are perhaps less careful.”
Excavators are reminded constantly to call Miss Utility before digging. The call center will notify utility companies when excavation work is proposed in the vicinity of their utility system and then each utility has the responsibility to send out surveyors to locate and mark the utilities on the ground.
Arlington County is a member of Virginia 811, a not-for-profit organization created by Virginia’s utilities. Virginia 811 has more than 600 utility members, as large as Verizon and Dominion Virginia Power and as small as water utility systems with only 20 or 30 customers.
Update at 10:20 a.m. — The leak has reportedly been stopped and the road is being reopened.
A busy street in Ballston has been closed due to a strong odor of natural gas coming from a manhole.
N. Randolph Street is closed between N. Glebe Road and Wilson Blvd, near the Ballston Common Mall demolition site. Several businesses on the Glebe Road side of Randolph have been evacuated.
Washington Gas crews are en route to try to stop the leak.
S. Fillmore Street between Columbia Pike and Route 50 has closed to traffic this afternoon as crews work to fix a gas leak.
The blocks between 2nd Street S. and 6th Street S. were shut down after gas began to seep out around the 400 block of S. Fillmore Street earlier today. Initial reports suggest a construction crew working on the sidewalks ruptured a 3/4 inch gas line.
Police are on the scene with Washington Gas personnel.
Update at 6:55 p.m. — The leak has been stopped and ACFD units have now left the scene.
Arlington County firefighters are on the scene of a major gas leak in the Virginia Square area.
Initial reports suggest that construction crews at the Latitude Apartments site, on the 3600 block of Fairfax Drive, across from the Metro station, hit and severed a three-inch gas line.
Police were called to the scene to block traffic around the gas leak.
Traffic lights dark in a power outage (file photo)
(Updated at 3:15 p.m.) Several traffic signals are out around Clarendon following a power outage that briefly affected much of the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.
The outage was reported around 12:30 p.m. in Courthouse, Clarendon, Virginia Square and Ballston. Power was quickly restored in most places, though Dominion says just over 200 customers are still without power.
Restoration is at least initially expected between 4-6 p.m., according to Dominion’s website.
Traffic lights are out at the following intersections in and around Clarendon, according to scanner traffic. Police are setting up cones to help direct traffic.
10th Street and Washington Blvd
10th Street and Wilson Blvd
10th Street and Fairfax Drive
10th Street and Barton Street
More traffic signals are being reported out along Fairfax Drive and, separately, at the intersection of Old Dominion Drive and Lee Highway. An earlier traffic light outage at Washington Blvd and N. Kirkwood Street has reportedly been resolved.
As for what caused the power outage, one Twitter user in Courthouse reported hearing a “loud noise” before losing power, while others reported a tree down on wires and blown transformers at the intersection of 10th Street and N. Barton Street, near Barton Park.
Also, a smell of natural gas is being reported at 10th Street and Washington Blvd. The fire department and Washington Gas is responding to the scene.
@samerfarha saw a transformer blow beside Barton Park and then heard 2 others. Flames/smoke etc but calm after that. @ARLnowDOTcom
Update at 10:05 a.m. — The leak has been stopped, according to scanner traffic. Residents who had been evacuated are being allowed back into their homes.
The Arlington County Fire Department is on the scene of a large gas leak in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood, near Pentagon City.
The leak was reported around 8:45 a.m. on S. Grant Street, between 18th and 19th Streets, a block from Arlington Fire Station No. 5.
Initial reports suggest a six-inch gas line below the street is actively leaking gas.
Washington Gas crews are on the scene and trying to figure out how to shut off the gas. Roads in the immediate vicinity are being shut down.
Update at 3:45 p.m. — The gas line has been shut off and the incident has been cleared. Northbound Crystal Drive remains shut down between Potomac Ave and 27 Street S. as repairs on the gas line continue.
Emergency crews are shutting down the 2600 block of Crystal Drive to repair a gas leak.
According to scanner traffic, multiple units from the Arlington County Fire Department are on scene for a hole in a four-inch gas line running underneath the street. Crystal Drive is under construction in the area and crews appeared to have hit the line while working.
The construction subcontractor that struck the gas line was working on the Crystal City Potomac Yard Transitway project, Arlington Dept. of Environmental Services spokesman Eric Balliet confirmed to ARLnow.com.
Police are also being dispatched to keep pedestrians away from the leak and to try to keep those in the buildings adjacent to the leak inside. One of those buildings is a large Environmental Protection Agency office at 2777 Crystal Drive.
The street is shut down from Potomac Ave to around 26th Street S. Drivers in the area should seek alternate routes. According to the scanner, police have cleared the buildings in the area and there are no evacuations.
There is no indication yet of when the leak will be repaired and how it may affect the evening rush. Washington Gas repair crews are on scene.
