Firefighters helped cordon off the area around a gas leak in front of the Charlottesville Circuit Court on High Street. Workers installing a sprinkler system for the building inadvertently cut through a main city gas line around 9:30am on Tuesday, December 12, making the area highly flammable—responders weren’t supposed to so much as touch each other for fear a static electric charge could cause an explosion, according to Ric Barrick, City spokesman. The leak was entirely sealed, and no one was injured—Circuit Court clerks, along with workers in surrounding buildings that were evacuated, merely got an extra long break. It was the second area gas leak in as many days: The day before, workers laying fiber optic cable for Comcast struck a gas main, temporarily shutting down a portion of Hydraulic Road near Albemarle High School.
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