Severed lines ignite St. Norbert fire

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This article was published 31/05/2023 (329 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A St. Norbert homeowner didn’t dial before he dug — twice.

Instead, because no inquiry was made for Manitoba Hydro to come out and mark where the underground natural gas and electrical lines were located, an excavator cut through both Wednesday at about 11:50 a.m.

The result was natural gas escaping from the broken pipe, the cut hydro line creating an electrical spark, the gas igniting and a fire erupting, summoning both utility and emergency crews to the scene.

“Thankfully, no one was hurt,” Manitoba Hydro spokesman Bruce Owen said Thursday. “We squeezed the pipe to shut the escaping gas off and we repaired the pipe and the electrical cable.”

While that first cut may have been the deepest, it wasn’t the only one.

Little more than five hours later, hydro and emergency crews again had to rush back to the site after the same person — and same piece of equipment — cut the gas line again, this time missing the electrical cable.

“It was not until 10:30 p.m. that the gas service was restored,” Owen said.

“We can find no record for the first incident of there being a request for a line locate… When there is damage to electrical or natural gas lines, where we figure the person is responsible, we can take them to court or ask them to pay. We do this fairly regularly.”

What isn’t fairly regular is two emergency calls to the same address, hours apart.

“I don’t know if that is unprecedented, but I can tell you it is unusual,” Owen said, adding it should be a lesson for others to call the Crown utility before doing any type of excavation work on a property.

“If anything, we’ll be having some really nice weather and people will be out working on their yards. Be it a deck, flower bed, fence or garage — if you are working anywhere and digging 15 centimetres down, people need to contact us before they dig.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca