This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.
Construction site

ST. LOUIS – First responders are at the intersection of South Grand and Klocke for a report of a natural gas leak. The location is near the Ted Drewes location on Grand. Several homes are being evacuated.

St. Louis firefighters tell FOX 2 that a crew digging a hole at around 8:00 am in the 4100 block of Louisiana struck a gas line. They are busy evacuating homes.

“There was a construction company that was contracted to construct a rain garden, an undergarden retention to collect runoff,” said Captain Leon Whitener with the St. Louis Fire Department. ” This is going to slow the flooding process in St. Louis. They’re working on this project, they hit a gas main. For precautionary measures, we evacuated the homes on this block, so we can bring our personnel in to check these homes far for gas levels.”

Firefighter going door to door

Firefighters have not detected any gas levels at this time. The threat has mainly ended as gas is disappating into the air rather than into homes.

” If there was gas getting into some underground area or into a home, you could potentially have an explosion,” said Whitener. “That’s the thing that we were looking to prevent because gas can leak underground and find his way into homes.”

Whitener says it’s unclear if the gas main was marked while the work was ongoing. Spire officials are planning to analyze the homes later Thursday.

Bommarito Automotive Group SkyFOX Helicopter has been sent to survey the scene from the air. FOX 2’s Chris Regnier will be reporting from the ground.

This is a developing story. More information will be posted here as it comes into the FOX 2 Newsroom. Refresh this page for the latest update.