Be informed of options in case of gas leak

To the Editor:

I am writing this letter to the general public so that they may be aware of a situation that is happening in the Fairmont community. I recently returned home from a major surgery, so was not moving around very much yet. On Sunday, June 30, my wife and I detected a slight smell of a natural gas leak in our home. I knew there was a 24-hour emergency number to call if you smelled gas. I was unable to locate it in the phone book, etc., so I decided to call 911 to ask the emergency operator for the emergency number. She said she would send the fire department and they would take care of it. They came and we told them that we only had two things on gas, the furnace and the clothes dryer. My wife had gone to the basement and didn’t smell gas, so we figured it was in the clothes dryer. They sniffed the air and agreed we had a gas leak. They stuck some kind of a gauge in the dryer and said that there was a leak in the dryer. They shut off the gas and told me to contact an appliance dealer on Monday to get the leak repaired.

On Monday I contacted Dan’s Appliance. They had to order a part and by Wednesday they had it repaired for about $400.00. On Friday, July 5 I received a bill for $500.00 from the city for the fire department to come out and shut off the valve.

I checked with my insurance man, who was surprised that we had received the bill. He thought that the service was covered by all of the taxes they collect for the support of the fire department. Since it was too late to call on Friday, I called the gas company on Monday, July 9, and they gave me the emergency 800 number for gas leaks and said they would have come out and handled it for free. I contacted my council person to find out why I wasn’t given the emergency number I requested and the fire department was sent instead. He said he would check with the city administrator and they would get me an answer. On Thursday, July 11, while I was at my meeting of the Fairmont Human Rights Committee, the city administrator called me and informed me that none of the protocols had been violated and that I would be responsible for the $500.00. He said that the protocol is, if you call 911 with a gas leak, they will automatically send the fire department, and if they send the fire department, you will automatically be billed $500.00.

We discussed the situation at our meeting, and the members advised me to write this letter to inform the public so that those who are handicapped or elderly on a fixed income can understand their options in a similar situation.

I have enclosed the emergency number for the gas company at the end of this letter. We have posted this number near our most used exit. The incident happened on a nice day when we had the windows open so the gas couldn’t accumulate easily. My advice would be to post the number somewhere near where you can easily find it. If you smell gas, open a couple of windows. Grab the number and get out of the house. When you are outside, call the gas company 800 emergency number and they will check it out for free. If the smell is real strong, and you feel the need, then call 911 and expect to be billed $500.00.

I would hope that the protocols can be examined and improved to ask a few more questions (like are the windows open or closed to ventilate the gas out of the house) and determine the extent of the need to rush, before hitting the panic button and involving the fire department, possibly forcing someone to have to choose between groceries and medication or paying an unnecessary fire department bill. Thank you for your time reading this.

Gas Company emergency gas leak reporting number 800-889-4970.

Jerry R. Miller

Fairmont