Odor Investigations Still Not Explained By PG&E – County Wide Concerns

On the morning of Saturday September 7th Everything South City received a question about gas smells in the vicinity of Linden Avenue and Airport Blvd. We put the question out on our Facebook page and received multiple replies from others that they had also smelled gas odors. Rose Aragon said, “Yes I smelled it in Burlingame.. but never received notice for Millbrae (from PG&E).”

Brad Rosinski, Co-founder of Hazardous Weather Response Team – HWRT Woodside/Portola Valley, CA advised us around 12:30pm that day “*unconfirmed, just what I have head* PG&E supposedly sent out an email to all the top brass in North County (SSF, SB, MIL, BURL) letting them know that they would be out exercising and releasing pressure in their lines. Apparently no one read that email, and dispatch was flooded with calls of gas leaks and odor investigations this morning.”  Other folks in the area commented that they too had smelled gas. Michael Jaurigui wrote to tell us, ” Yup , I was at Nothing But Hoops (1881 Rollins Rd, Burlingame)  at 8:30 the smell was over whelming.” Indeed there was an emergency call made from the Rollins and Broadway at 9:am for odor investigation.

The next evening Nick Rose, a professional photographer who works with San Mateo Daily Journal, also shared “We smelled the gas all the way up to the Sunnybrae neighborhood in San Mateo. I was listening to the police scanner until 0950 yesterday morning and heard dispatch saying that PG&E was denying that there was any venting going on. Has anyone tried to e-mail a PR person with one of the fire departments.” Everything South City had contacted PG&E and did not receive a response nor did we receive any alerts which are normally sent out in advance.

On Monday September 9th, Rose updated us with this information “Well PG&E sent a e-mail to one of the writers at SMDJ and it basically said they found no leaks and they were not doing any venting of pipes that day.They had 100 field personnel out at looking for leaks but found none and were working closely with San Mateo Office of Emergency Services.”

Because of the extremely high number of calls for odor investigation, over 30 of them on that one day alone, Everything South City believes this is something that needs to addressed and has continued to petition PG&E for an answer.  If PG&E had been doing venting why weren’t alerts sent to customers who are signed up for them?

With the current concern on gas line 147 in San Carlos which warranted a State of Emergency and subsequent closure of this line earlier this month,  and today’s event evacuating  El Crystal Elementary School in San Bruno due to gas odors from work being done by PG&E on San Felipe and Acacia, PG&E must understand people want, and deserve, answers to all concerns.

PGE did respond to our inquiries stating they checked out each and every location and did not find any gas leaks or smells connected to PGE and agreed it was an unusual situation to have so many calls made in one day.

Below are the list of addresses where emergency calls where made to investigate odors.

Odor Investigations Saturday September 7, 2013 – WWW.EVERYTHINGSOUTHCITY.COM