Back A broken natural gas line Monday afternoon forced the evacuation of people living in 46 mobile homes and cut off gas service to 460 residences in Jefferson County. A 2-inch valve failed along Highway 61 south of Festus, near the Twin Gables mobile home park and not far from the Arbor Place nursing home. The gas line is owned by Center Point, a supplier to Missouri Natural Gas Co. A Center Point crew tried to repair the broken valve after the company noticed a sharp drop in the pressure at 1:40 p.m. Authorities evacuated the mobile homes about 2:30 p.m. and shut off gas service around 4 p.m. to a 4½ mile pipeline, said Thomas Reitz, an operations superintendent for Laclede Gas, which owns Missouri Natural Gas. Some residents of the nursing home lost gas service, but crews set up a mobile cart equipped with gas tanks. Residents of the mobile home park were allowed back onto their homes about 8 p.m. but they remained without gas service. Red Cross volunteers staffed a nearby VFW hall to provide food and a place to sleep while crews worked to restore service late Monday. Gas service was expected to be out until this morning. Red Cross volunteer Teena Kilo of Festus said she didn’t know how many people to expect. “A lot of people out in the area don’t like to ask for help,” she said. “They just like to do it for themselves.” This story may be available for an Adobe Acrobat PDF download. Click on the link below to visit the site download center. If a PDF is available, the file will automatically open in your browser.

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