Work Stoppage In Frisco After More Gas Line Breaks
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FRISCO (CBSDFW.COM) - The city of Frisco is telling AT&T to stop digging after multiple gas line breaks in the area. They say it's a fiber installation project by AT&T that's to blame - and now they have ordered the project to stop.
Van Nguyen's morning changed dramatically Thursday with a knock at her front door.
"I opened the door and I saw the police cars and the fire trucks and the ambulances. I got freaked out," says Nguyen. "I was in pajamas. It was like, go, go!
She and seven of her neighbors were forced to evacuate because of a gas line break on her street.
"I said, oh my God, I hope everything is going to be fine," she says.
Across town, another gas line break happened shortly after noon Thursday. In both cases, subcontractors were working on an AT&T fiber installation project. According to a Frisco spokesperson,
27 natural gas lines have been cut this year; 20 of them related to the AT&T project. The city has now issued a stop work order for the project for the second time this year. They
say city staff has requested a meeting with AT&T leadership to review protocols agreed upon in March. As for Nguyen, she says she'd gladly forsake high-speed internet to avoid this again.
"That is so unsafe," she says. "They need to fix it. They need to do something about it."
An AT&T spokesman issued a statement in response to CBS 11's inquiry. It says, ""We are working with city and utility officials to investigate the cause of two unrelated gas cuts today involving different contractors in separate locations working on our fiber construction project in Frisco. Our contractors work with local utility companies and location service providers to accurately determine where it is safe to dig, and we require our contractors to follow local construction requirements and codes. We work hard to minimize any disruption for residents and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."