The following statement is from the City of Concord:
On Nov. 16, 2022 at about 10:30 a.m., a construction crew contracted by the City of Concord to conduct repaving work on Grant and East streets hit a 4-inch gas line causing it to ignite. The fire soon engulfed the pavement grinder, but the operator was able to escape quickly and was unharmed.
Contra Costa Fire Protection District crews and Concord Police Department officers responded immediately to close the roads and control the fire, which could not be extinguished until PG&E crews were able to pinch off the corresponding gas lines.
Although no evacuations or shelter-in-place orders were made by authorities, some nearby businesses and a local high school took those additional precautions.
PG&E was able to halt the gas flow to the line at about 12:30 p.m., enabling fire crews to extinguish the fire. Following extensive cleanup and PG&E’s work to replace the broken pipe, the roads were fully reopened by 9 a.m. on Nov. 17.
Concord’s engineering team paused all work on the project and met on-site with the contractor, Bay Cities Paving, and PG&E to review all safety protocols. PG&E and the contractor re-marked all of the underground utilities in the area. The contractor was then approved to begin work again on Nov. 18, which was limited to shallow milling of the asphalt and digging to positively verify all utilities in the work area.
The contractor reviewed the results of the safety review, re-marking and planned construction events with the City Engineer and was allowed to return to work on Nov. 19 with work limited to what was necessary.
As a city, we take public safety very seriously, and we apologize for the significant inconvenience this incident caused.
We also want to assure the community that every construction project undergoes a considerable amount of review and preparation to prevent this type of incident. Utilities are marked in advanced and construction crews are trained on how to safely avoid them. The City is working with the contractor to determine the root cause to ensure this type of incident does not happen in the future.
The engineering team is closely monitoring the work in the field.
BY LAW how deep was line supposed to be buried ? ? ?
How deep was line actually buried ? ?
Was line installed using subsurface boring equipment ? ? ?
yeah you two. The lines are old infrastructure. Get used to it.
Call 811 before you dig.
gotta wonder why they keep failing to mention the two explosions that shook buildings all about?
gotta wonder why they keep failing to mention the power outage causing the hospital to go on backup?
gotta wonder why they keep failing to mention so much more……
yeah you two. The lines are old infrastructure. Get used to it.
The Google Street view images of the area are from September 2022 and show active construction at the intersection where we had the fire plus and others along Grant Street. It looks like at that time contractors were working on the curbs, probably to make the pedestrian crossings ADA compliant. As a result though, there are Underground Service Alert (USA) marks all over the street for this project. The water main is marked, sewer and storm drains are marked, and the traffic monitoring and signal light control wires are marked. I can’t see marks for any gas lines in the area. Bay Cities is a large enough contractor that they would have a system in place to make sure the USA ticket is signed off but the lack of gas line marks makes me wonder if they were ever added for the pavement work.
I forgot to include a link to the Street View of the area. https://goo.gl/maps/h4jb9HrSawMshvqs9
What – no apology directly from the mayor or a mayoral assurance the council is taking responsibility for overseeing that these safety protocols are in place and followed? When something positive happens on the city’s watch/dime, councilmembers can’t wait to get their name out there as the responsible party. Something negative and dangerous happens on the city’s watch/dime, and council hides behind the city manager’s skirts.
Leave them be Hope Johnson. It takes time to evaluate these situations. Let alone harping on a banjo.
@ ON DA Your comment makes no sense. No reason a statement from the mayor or even the councilmember for that district couldn’t have been released with the city manager’s. Same evaluation time. That’s what accountability is all about – taking responsibility for the good and the bad.
H J is right on this one