Naperville area evacuated in gas main break

Book Road south of 95th Street in Naperville was evacuated today after landscape workers struck a high-pressure gas main this morning, police said.

The evacuation order for Book Road from Wagner Road to Conan Doyle Road ended at 12:30 p.m., 3ˆ¨ hours after it was issued, Naperville Police Battalion Chief Patrick Sleik said.

The landscapers were contracted to work on a Naperville Park District facility that will house maintenance equipment, he said.

"We stopped all traffic, both pedestrian and automobile, so the gas wouldn't have an ignition source," he said. "The wind kept it away from most of the buildings that were involved, and, luckily, we were in a larger, open area."

The landscape struck a plastic gas pipe with a digging device while planting a tree.

It was more than two hours before Nicor brought two digging crews who excavated the line, shut off the gas and put in a new section of pipe.

Sleik said Nicor usually responds quicker.

"It's a holiday weekend, so they have a limited number of crews," he said. "We did have a delayed response."

A Nicor representative was looking into the matter before commenting to the Daily Herald.

The accident isn't unusual, Sleik said.

"Generally around new construction areas, we usually have something of this nature during construction season," Sleik he said. "This was a larger service, so there was a little bit more concern."