A suspected natural gas leak at a University fraternity house closed down East 19th Avenue between Agate and Emerald streets late Saturday night.
Eugene Fire Department officials investigated what eventually turned out to be a false alarm at the Sigma Chi house at 1440 E 19th Ave. @@Eugene Fire Department: http://www.eugene-or.gov/portal/server.pt?space=CommunityPage&control=SetCommunity&CommunityID=212&PageID=0@@ @@Sigma Chi:http://www.sigmachi.org/@@
“They said they had a natural gas smell possibly,” Eugene Fire Department Cpt. Ray Smith said. “We came in with all our monitors, found nothing, so we just confirmed there was nothing of a hazard to them.” @@http://www.eugenekiltedfirefighters.com/page2.php@@
Residents of Sigma Chi thought they detected a natural gas smell in their house and called the fire department’s nonemergency line to ensure their safety.
“They couldn’t find anything,” Sigma Chi president Will Sherratt said. “They went through with whatever their gadgets are called and didn’t find any levels that were out of the ordinary.” @@Will Sherratt: http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Sherratt@@
Sherratt said his fraternity had no problems with any smell until the last couple of days, which finally prompted the call to the fire department.
“They do have a smell in the front room, but we don’t know what it is; it doesn’t smell like gas or natural gas,” Smith said. “It’s more than likely a housekeeping issue, or something that’s been left somewhere and is causing the smell.”
Sigma Chi was the second house in Fraternity and Sorority Life to suspect a gas leak in the past week. The Gamma Phi Beta sorority had a false alarm April 28 after a power outage triggered the gas alarms in its house.@@http://www.gammaphibeta.org/@@