UPDATE: As of 7 p.m. on Wednesday, traffic patterns on North Estes Drive returned to normal.

A busy road in Chapel Hill is closed on Wednesday afternoon as emergency services investigated a gas leak.

The Chapel Hill Fire Department shared an alert to the community shortly before 12:30 p.m., saying North Estes Drive would be closed between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Caswell Road. The department said the gas leak was at Somerset Drive, a road by the Azalea Estates retirement community.

A spokesperson for Dominion Energy North Carolina, the gas supplier, told Chapelboro the leak stemmed from a gas line damaged by work in the area unrelated to Dominion.

Crews stopped the leak around 1:25 p.m., according to Dominion, but repair is expected to take several hours. The Dominion Energy spokesperson said work may continue into early evening traffic, while the Chapel Hill Fire Department warned motorists the evening commute would likely be disrupted.

Two schools are located on North Estes Drive: Guy Phillips Middle School and Estes Hills Elementary School. Neither school entrances are located in the stretch of road directly affected by the lane closure.

 

Photo via Town of Chapel Hill.

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