Gas Odor Gives Quincy A Scare

Fire officials ordered a building-wide evacuation of the New Quincy wing of Quincy House yesterday morning after an odor of gas was detected in its basement.

Residents were allowed to re-enter after about 10 minutes, after fire officials found no apparent leaks in the building and called the gas company to perform further investigation, a fire official said.

Shortly after the alarm was sounded at about 9:50 a.m., a faint smell of gas could be detected outside of the building. Workers from the Comgas utility who were on the site yesterday afternoon said that the source of the odor was a broken gas main under Plympton St., directly in front of Quincy House.

The break was most likely caused by the age of the approximately 100-year-old pipe, workers said. They estimated that the gas main had been broken for approximately a month.

The break was fixed with a repair sleeve, workers said.