SOUTHWICK – An odor of gas caused the evacuation of a building on College Highway this morning.
The Ryan’s Professional Building at 627 College Highway was temporarily evacuated when employees at Dr. Jerome Azia’s dental office noticed a smell of natural gas early Wednesday morning. They notified Columbia Gas and the Southwick Fire Department responded to secure the building along with Southwick Police.
Fire Chief Richard Anderson said they evacuated the building until Columbia Gas arrived on scene.
“Columbia Gas responded and quickly shut off the gas to that area of the building,” said Anderson. “Everyone was returned to the building quickly.”
The entire ordeal took less than an hour.
Anderson said the incident was referred to the plumbing inspector because the source of the odor was a gas dryer that had been moved, but not properly vented.
“This odor call was responded to and the technician discovered that a new gas dryer was installed improperly,” said Andrea M. Luppi, communications and community relations manager for Columbia Gas of Massachusetts in Springfield. “Our only course of action is to make the situation safe until the customer’s contractor can rectify the issue. We would then return to turn the gas back on.”
