KSHB 41 reporter Marlon Martinez covers Platte and Clay counties in Missouri. Share your story idea with Marlon.
Platte City is pausing a major internet project after a subcontractor hit a natural gas line near a school, forcing an evacuation late last week.
The city said crews working for United Fiber struck the gas line last Friday while boring underground. Emergency responders were able to quickly evacuate students from Siergrist Elementary and Platte County High School.
“It is not clear to me whether they were boring somewhere they shouldn’t be, or if the location was bad and they did not expect the pipe to be there based upon the markings,” said City Administrator Bryan Richison. “That’s one thing I think we need to discuss and figure out what’s going on.”
The city has suspended all operations of the project by United Fiber following the incident. City Administrator Bryan Richison said they don't take these incidents lightly
"I think there's still a lot of questions about what really happened," said Richison. "Was the gas line where it was supposed to be, or did the contractor just not do their job correctly? And I think that's still an open question.”
A spokesperson from United Fiber sent a statement to KSHB 41.
"We are not aware of any formal suspension of work issued by city officials in Platte City. We greatly value the strong working relationship we share with the City and its staff and remain committed to continued collaboration,"
A special meeting is set for this morning at City Hall, where representatives from multiple utility companies, including United Fiber will review the incident and discuss safety measures going forward.
“If we can come out of the meeting today feeling like we have some kind of satisfactory resolution, then I think we’ll go ahead and let them continue their work," said Richison. "If we come out of that meeting with concerns, we’ll have to talk internally at the city about what’s the right action for us to take.”
Richison acknowledged the community wants competition in broadband internet. But he stressed that safety has to remain the city’s top priority.
Safety always comes first,” he said. “If it happens again, we’ll need to find out why and fix whatever is broken — whether that is the contractor out in the field not doing their work properly, or if there’s some kind of persistent problem that these utility lines aren’t where we think they are.”
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