On Saturday, the King County Sheriff’s Office took to Facebook to speak to the residents who live in an unincorporated area of Redmond concerning a gas leak incident from Dec. 6
Deputies said that around 11:45 p.m. on Dec. 6, residents in Union Hill called 911 to report a loud “venting” sound near a natural gas pipeline.
KCSO said the pipe venting sound lasted around five seconds and repeated before it became a continuous hissing sound.
Deputies said that many residents decided to evacuate the area concerned that the pipe could explode.
The KCSO and Redmond Fire Department arrived and closed several blocks of northeast Union Hill Road as a safety precaution and reached out to the company that owns the pipeline to report the problem.
KCSO said that the company sent out technicians to take care of the problem and after an hour the problem was fixed, but over 7 million cubic feet of methane gas had leaked.
KCSO wrote in a Facebook post:
What went wrong?
Venting is a safe process that is designed to occur with regularity – relief valves open naturally to relieve pressure from the line. It is believed that an equipment failure led to a piece of fabric clogging a regulator, which caused the valve to be stuck open, releasing gas. Over 7 million cubic feet of methane gas was lost in the incident.