Firefighters find gas leaks hours after two found dead in Columbia apartments
Columbia officials ordered the evacuation of more than 400 residents at Allen Benedict Court on Friday, a day after two people were found dead in their apartments at the public housing complex. Here’s a look at what led to the evacuation.
After the two were found dead on Thursday morning, Columbia Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins said the building where the bodies were located was inspected for gas leaks. No heightened levels were found during the time of the inspection.
“It had aired out by then,” Jenkins said.
Later that evening, between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., Jenkins received a call from an Allen Benedict resident saying that the resident remembered smelling gas in a unit a week or two before. The resident lived in a different building than the one where the bodies were found. Jenkins decided to have the fire department inspect the caller’s building.
Heightened levels of hazardous gas were found in that building, according to Jenkins.
Around 11 p.m., Jenkins ordered an inspection of all buildings in Allen Benedict Court. The hours-long inspection found 63 living units with heightened levels of gas. Residents of 33 of those units were ordered to immediately evacuate, resulting in 81 people leaving, Jenkins said.
The inspections ended around 4 a.m.
Jenkins also decided to regroup later in the morning and “put together some teams … to go in and inspect those buildings.”
On Friday morning, all the buildings in Allen Benedict Court were inspected again. Around noon, Columbia public safety officials began an evacuation of every building, going door-to-door explaining to people that they had to leave because of the gas leaks. Yellow signs were placed on unit doors of each building explaining that people could not enter the units.
It’s unclear how long Allen Benedict Court residents will be out of their homes. Gilbert Walker, executive director of the Columbia Housing Authority that oversees Allen Benedict Court, called the evacuation a “temporary action,” while Jenkins said the fire department will work “as long as it takes” to make the units safe.
This story was originally published January 18, 2019 at 7:00 AM.
