Carmel debates PG&E response to gas leak in town hall meeting

Some Carmel residents said their trust in Pacific Gas & Electric is broken, following recent gas leaks and a home explosion in March. They said the company isn’t doing a good enough job at responding to emergencies. But the utility company is defending its work and said safety is its top priority.

On Monday night, Carmel city leaders gave a group of residents a chance to hear what happened during Friday ‘s gas leak. This time, directly from PG & E and the construction company who said it hit a gas line on Friday , causing a leak.

“Unfortunately there’s a lot of unforeseen circumstances that happen when you’re dealing with underground construction and they struck a line that they shouldn’t have struck,” said Paul Bruno with Monterey Peninsula Engineering.

Bruno said his company struck a 3/4 inch service coming off a 3-inch line, sending a gas cloud 20 feet into the air causing evacuations on Friday . He apologized for the incident and said his staff is very experienced but made a mistake that day. He feels PG & E’s response was appropriate. But Mayor Jason Burnett said he’s not so sure.

“There are reports that PG&E’s first on scene was relatively quick but it took well over 20 minutes before the truck with proper equipment arrived on scene and we need to determine whether that’s as good as it can be,” Burnett said.

PG & E reports a representative was at the scene within 10 minutes and a crew with equipment arrived 26 minutes after the pipe was hit.

“Our emergency response to this situation was well within the time frame of what we have committed to the city as well as our customers and our regulators and we are working very closely with first responders to make sure that the safety of the public is our top priority,” said PG&E spokesperson Donald Cutler.

Some residents at Monday night’s town hall voiced their concerns about the evacuation and wanted to know why the valve supplying the gas wasn’t shut off immediately.

“You don’t trust them. They do things for their own good, not for the good of the people they’re serving as customers and that should change,” said resident Roy Thomas.

On Tuesday night , city leaders plan to go into further detail on issue with PG&E’s response this time. The March incident is still under investigation.