Residents in Lyndon Township were jolted by a loud explosion on Monday night about 10:30 p.m. caused by a Consumer’s Energy high pressure gas line bursting about 2 miles from Township Hall off North Territorial Road.
Emergency dispatch received numerous calls from nearby residents who heard the gas line erupt and reported a subsequent loud, continuous noise “like a fire was raging but there was no glow on the horizon,” as one person described it.
Lyndon Township Clerk and Chelsea Area Fire Authority Board Member Linda Reilly said she heard the explosion at her home and described it as “really loud, like an airplane was going overhead and there was a roar going on that didn’t stop.”
Chelsea Fire Chief Jim Payeur called it a “fairly large explosion” and said he called Reilly to open up the Township Hall so it could be used as a staging area for emergency personnel. Two fire engines blocked off the roads in the area as a precaution.
Payeur said the county HAZMAT team was called in and a Consumer’s Energy Underground crew arrived from Kalamazoo to cap the break.
No one was hurt, but Chelsea firefighters were constantly monitoring the air quality because “it’s an odorless gas” in case an evacuation was necessary. Payeur said the gas was shooting straight up and the weather conditions did not warrant emergency evacuations.
“Everyone was lucky on this one,” he said, adding that this was the first “pipeline emergency” the department has had to handle since he was hired as chief in 2005.
Plus, he said, recently a pipeline association had sent a DVD to the fire station for training purposes, which showed all the pipes in the area and the firefighters had recently begun training for possible scenarios in the event of an emergency.
Chelsea firefighters took an all-terrain vehicle into the woods near the break and found an about “50-foot crater” Payeur said, and firefighters remained on the scene until about 2:30 a.m.
Reilly said she was initially concerned about whether voting would be able to take place today in Township Hall, but it was going on as scheduled. The township has an agreement with the Chelsea Rod and Gun Club to be an alternate voting site if necessary.
The 20-inch line is a high velocity one, Payeur said and it was “carrying a lot of gas. Something like 600 pounds of pressure. ”
