HomeNewsEagan Celebration leads to gas leak at Eagan school
Celebration leads to gas leak at Eagan school
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Faithful Shepherd students were safely evacuated
by Erin Johnson
Thisweek Newspapers
Billed by organizers as the “Biggest Rock the Flock Party in the ’Burbs,” SeptemberFest is an annual outdoor music festival that draws crowds to Faithful Shepherd Catholic School in Eagan.
This year, the celebration led to a potentially dangerous situation when stakes from a pavilion tent penetrated an underground natural gas line in several places.
The tent had been set up in the school’s parking lot for the event, held Sept. 18-20.
The Eagan Police and Fire departments responded to a report of a gas leak at the school Monday, Sept. 21, as crews were dismantling the site.
Three of the two-foot stakes used for the large tent had penetrated the gas line and then acted as a plug, so no gas was released until the stakes were removed Monday morning, Eagan Fire Chief Mike Scott said.
The school immediately evacuated all 530 students safely.
“The school did a marvelous job evacuating everybody and accounting for everybody,” he said.
The company that set up the tents did the right thing and located the utility lines before driving in the stakes, Scott said.
“But when you get the locations of the (utility) line, it doesn’t mean that’s exactly where the line is. There are some variations,” he said. “They usually tell you not to dig within so many feet of that line.”
Gopher State One Call recommends allowing a 24-inch buffer on either side of the marked location.
After the leak was located, crews had to crimp the pipe to stop the leak and then replace the line. The school was able to open again by 6 p.m. that evening.
Scott said it was fortunate that the leak didn’t occur until after SeptemberFest, which draws more than 1,000 people.
This year’s event featured a weekend of food, drinks, carnival games and music – including a headline performance by Jonny Lang – followed by a Sunday outdoor mass. The entire event is held on school grounds under an open-air pavilion tent.
Now in its sixth year, the celebration required the tent to be relocated this year due to a change in the city’s noise ordinance. Crews had to face the tent toward the industrial park and away from residential areas, so the stakes were placed in a new location.
Faithful Shepherd is located at 3355 Columbia Drive, east of I-35E on Yankee Doodle Road.
Erin Johnson is at
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