SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah, April 28, 2025 (Gephardt Daily) -- About 10 hours after an emergency evacuation order was issued for an area of South Salt Lake, the order was lifted and residents were allowed to return.
The order, sparked by a major gas leak, was lifted shortly before 8:30 a.m. Monday.
"The evacuation order was lifted this morning," said Terry Addison, South Salt Lake Fire chief, at a Monday morning news conference.
"The Gas Company has restored gas to the area, and power has been restored to the area. The gas company is currently going through and double checking all of the meters and we turned off so they can get them turned back on.
"There's no danger in the area anymore."
Photo: Gephardt Daily/ Patrick Benedict
The evacuation order was issued late Sunday afternoon, and residents were assisted by the Red Cross. They also were to shelter, along with their pets, at the LDS Church meeting house at 3805 S. Main St. Addison said three or four families did stay at the church.
The fire fueled by the gas leak was extinguished at about 9:30 p.m., but the task of finding and repairing the source of the leak remained.
"They had to dig up the road," he told reporters. "They did find a hole in one of the lines that was pretty close to where the fire was coming out of the road last night."
Utility company investigators will determine what went wrong, Addison said.
Photo: Gephardt Daily/ Patrick Benedict
The timing helped minimize the impact to the community, he said.
"Luckily, it was a weekend or a Sunday evening, not a lot of people were around. We were able to get the area blocked off, send out alerts and have the area evacuated."
Gas leaks are tricky, he said, because "that pipeline is a conduit, so even if there's gas escaping, there's dirt around that pipe, so there's void areas that gas can travel along that conduit, like water on your sprinkler pipe, it will find an ignition source. It could ignite if it gets inside of the building, and the gas builds up and then there is a spark, it can become explosive."
Now, the leak has been repaired with no damage to residents or other structures.
"Everything's back to normal as far as we know," Addison said. Holes did remain in the road, "and those will get repaired shortly."
Map from Salt Lake County Emergency Management
