Residents of a Little Rock apartment building were evacuated due to a gas leak Tuesday evening, several hours after gas service had been restored to their units, fire officials said.
The Little Rock Fire Department received a call about a leak in a unit at the Big Country Chateau Apartments, 6200 Colonel Glenn Road, at about 8 p.m., according to Capt. Jason Weaver, a fire department spokesman. While there, the department received two additional reports of leaks at the complex, he said.
Weaver said authorities evacuated the area around the affected buildings and cut gas to the complex. Ross Corsom, a CenterPoint Energy spokesman, said Wednesday afternoon he didn’t believe service had been restored to the building.
According to CenterPoint, service at the apartments was shut off Sept. 15 so that management could repair a previous leak in below-ground piping. The company began restoring gas to the apartments Sept. 25. as each building was inspected and approved by the city’s code enforcement agency, Corsom said.
No injuries were reported from the leaks, the fire captain said. Authorities let the gas dissipate from the affected apartments and residents have since been allowed to return to their units, according to the spokesman.
“It’s sort of like burnt food,” he said. “You have smoke in there and you blow it out and you’re good to go again.”
Before gas can be restored to the affected building, the apartments’ owner must repair the leaks and city code enforcement agents must approve the fixes, Corsom said. According to CenterPoint responsibility of repairing the leak and getting service restored lies with the owner of the business, Apex Big Chateau AR LLC.
Big Country Chateau LLC sold the complex to Apex on July 31, according to assessor records.
A message left with Big Country Chateau to determine how long management expects repairs to take hadn’t been returned early Wednesday afternoon.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the date a message was left with Big Country Chateau. A message was left Wednesday afternoon.