It’s been exactly 24 hours now since the Highland Park crash that ruptured a gas line and forced more than 150 people to evacuate early Friday.
(Texted photo)
We’ve been following up on three aspects of the incident and here’s what we have found out so far:
THE GAS LINE: Late Friday morning, Puget Sound Energy crews were back at the scene, and you could clearly see the piping in the area where the car had flipped, not only sending gas flowing into the air but also triggering a high-pitched noise until the gas was turned off.
We asked PSE spokesperson Ray Lane for a little more about what was hit: “The car hit what’s called a ‘district regulator’ – it’s an important piece of equipment which helps set the pressure for natural gas moving through the system and into neighborhoods and customers’ homes. That explains the sound you heard at the scene. We were notified of a problem at 12:19 a, with repairs made at 1:45 a. I believe the crews were checking on the equipment again in the daylight hours. Customer service was not impacted.”
THE INTERSECTION: SW Holden/Highland Park Way is notorious for crashes and traffic backups. The community and city have partnered on exploring possible solutions, such as a roundabout, or traffic signal. And that’s still where things stand, a year-plus later, SDOT‘s Jim Curtin told us when we asked for an update on Friday: “We’re working with nearby residents to develop a Neighborhood Street Fund proposal for this location but we do not have any official projects planned at this time.”
THE DRIVER: We weren’t able to learn anything more Friday about the driver who was taken to the hospital after flipping his car, but we know SPD classified the case as a DUI investigation.
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