Some residents of the north Heights may have been puzzled about a gas smell in the area on Saturday (5/10) afternoon. The Brooklyn Eagle reveals that the source was the result a truck knocking the head off of a gas lamp on Poplar Street.
Brooklyn Eagle: FDNY ladder companies 110, 118 and engine 205, along with FDNY Emergency 31 rushed to 81 Poplar Street at roughly 3:30 p.m. to shut off the gas flow feeding the lamp from an underground line. Firefighters were initially unable to reach the emergency gas shutoff valve because years of debris had collected on top of it.
“There’s so much sediment we have to pump it out to get to the shutoff valve,” a firefighter told the Brooklyn Eagle.
The paper adds that while Brooklyn Union Gas installed the lamps backintheday it’s successor, Keyspan, no longer maintains them. That responsibility now falls on property owners.
Brooklyn Eagle photo