Gas main break in Naperville

Book Road south of 95th Street in Naperville was evacuated Sunday 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., 3½ 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 arrived with two digging crews who excavated the line, shut off the gas and put in a new section of pipe, police said.

Sleik said Nicor usually responds quicker.

"We did have a delayed response," he said.

Nicor spokeswoman Annette Martinez said the response was not delayed. A representative was on the scene by 9:30 a.m. to assess the situation, a call for their crew went out at 10 a.m. and officials arrived just before noon and made repairs before 1 p.m., she said.

Martinez said the gas company has more crews scheduled to work on weekdays than it does on weekends.

"It's just a weekend schedule," she said.

Sleik said such gas main breaks are not particularly unusual.

"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."