Middle school, day care evacuated in Mount Olive after gas leak

MOUNT OLIVE –  Students attending the township middle school and a next-door day-care center were evacuated Monday morning after township workers struck a gas line was on the edge of Wolfe Road, according to township and utility sources.

No one was injured during the incident, although one department worker was taken to the hospital for observation after inhaling some of the gas, according to township officials.

Students at the nonprofit Mount Olive Child Care and Learning Center, including some infants, were evacuated to the senior center at the nearby township municipal complex. The middle school students were evacuated to the performing-arts center at Mount Olive High School, where former New York Giant Lee Rouson, now a teacher's aide in the district, was recruited to present an anti-bullying and self-esteem seminar to the middle schoolers.

"We didn't want the kids just sitting on their hands there," said Mount Olive School district Superintendent Larrie Reynolds.

The middle school students, already on a shortened single-session day schedule in effect from Monday to Wednesday, were bused home from the high school, Reynolds said. Parent-teacher conferences scheduled for Monday afternoon were cancelled, but Reynolds said evening conferences would go on.

The roads in the area, blocked by police during the incident, were clear by 11 a.m. By then, most of the approximately 50 students of the day-care center had been picked up from the senior center by parents, although a few remained with their teachers and several seniors.

The day-care staffed walked the students to the senior center, even transporting some of the youngest children in wheeled cribs.

"They initially had us go to the bus depot behind the middle school, then we were told to come here," said center director Gail Reuther while still at the senior center. "This is the first time that we've really had to test our evacuation at the school. My staff just pulled together and did everything right. They stayed calm, the children stayed calm, the police department worked hand-in-hand with us and everything went as smooth as it possible could given it was an emergency."

One parent at the center, Elisa Scivetta, said she was "a little panicky" trying to get to the center but was relieved to find her son, Jackson, 4, happy "and unaffected" by the day's adventure.

"He's smiling and still with his teacher," she said.

Police were called at about 8:52 a.m. to the scene on the side of west Wolfe Road, roughly in between the middle school and center, where workers were using an powered auger to dig a hole near a gas line marked by Elizabethtown Gas. The nature of the work project was unclear, but a buried four-inch gas main was struck during the dig, releasing pressured gas into the air, according to police Capt. Stephen Beecher.

"They had called for a mark-out, and the mark-out was off, and they hit the line," Beecher said.

An Elizabethtown Gas worker on the scene said "The marks were correct," and that the workers dug too close to the mark. They also produced a brochure from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities with guidelines for "Safe Excavating Practices" including instructions to "Hand dig within two feet of any underground facility to locate underground facilities before operating any mechanized equipment."

Elizabethtown Gas spokesperson Duane Bourne said "The gas line appears to have been appropriately marked," and a measure board placed next to the hole clearly showed digging of some sort well within the two-foot guideline.

Units from the gas company arrived on the scene by 9:15 a.m. and had the gas to the main shut off by 10:15 a.m., Bourne said.

The township's Department of Public Works did not immediately respond to phone messages. Bourne said Elizabethtown has not yet launched an investigation, but that "we usually look into the root cause of things like this after we get the line repaired."

Staff Writer William Westhoven: 973-917-9242; wwesthoven@GannettNJ.com.