Displaced: 'We want to go home'

Res­i­dents frus­trated after being evac­u­ated from their homes fol­low­ing a major gas leak near Maple Street last week voiced their con­cerns dur­ing a pub­lic meet­ing at the high school on Monday.

About 100 res­i­dents attended a brief­ing that was hosted by the dif­fer­ent agen­cies tak­ing part in the clean-up of the 116,760-gallon gas leak.

Most of the res­i­dents are upset about being evac­u­ated from their homes and not being told when they will be able to return.

Pat Cypher, one of two res­i­dents evac­u­ated on Peck-Wadsworth Road, said she was given no warn­ing she would be evacuated.

“They just banged on our door at 6:15 (a.m.) and evac­u­ated us,” she said.

Cypher said they were told they could go to Amherst and Sunoco Logis­tics would pay for them to stay at Motel 6.

How­ever, roads were icy due to the first snow storm of the year that started last Thurs­day night.

“The roads were hor­ri­ble,” she said. “How was I sup­posed to drive all the way out there?”

Cypher said they were later told they could stay at the Ober­lin Inn or the Elms Retire­ment Vil­lage in Wellington.

“I could go to the Elms, but I’ve seen what hap­pens in nurs­ing homes, and I’m not going to stay in a nurs­ing home,” she said. “I’m 69 years old, I don’t need to be in a nurs­ing home.”

Cypher said another issue she, along with many oth­ers are hav­ing, is tak­ing her dog with her.

“A lot of places won’t let you bring dogs with you,” she said.

Cypher said she is stay­ing at her son’s house until she can return home.

Cypher said she tried to return home so she could get some clothes and other neces­si­ties, but wasn’t allowed to. She went back to her house on Peck Wadsworth with her hus­band, and a sher­iff was block­ing the driveway.

“They told me I couldn’t pull into my dri­ve­way,” she said. “I asked what they would do if I got out of the car and walked up to my door, and they said they would arrest me.”

Dur­ing Monday’s brief­ing, Cypher spoke out and said she felt the rea­son she wasn’t allowed at her house is because the work is tak­ing place right across the street.

“You just don’t want me to see what’s going on,” she said.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the var­i­ous agen­cies told her that wasn’t the case, and she was evac­u­ated for her own safety.

How­ever, she feels com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the agen­cies and res­i­dents has been poor.

“My con­cern is not know­ing what’s going on, “she said. “They won’t tell us when we’ll be able to go home. No one tells us anything.”

Allan Cor­ral is luck­ier than most, because he wasn’t evac­u­ated from his home.

Cor­ral is a Welling­ton Town­ship res­i­dent who lives on Peck-Wadsworth Road.

How­ever, he’s seen dam­age to his property.

“I got oil in my yard,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of dead water­borne crea­tures in the water in my yard.”

Cor­ral said he has seen about 15 dead fish and one dead frog in the White Ditch that runs along his yard.

Cor­ral, who owns Lake­side Ken­nels, also has con­cerns for the dogs on his prop­erty. Cor­ral breeds golden retrievers.

“There’s poten­tial birth defects that can be caused by this gas leak,” he said.

Cor­ral raised his con­cerns to the rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the dif­fer­ent agen­cies, which included the United State Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA), the Ohio EPA, and Sunoco Logis­tics. Cor­ral was not pleased with the responses he received.

“They can say what they want, but it hap­pens,” he said. “To blow off my con­cerns that eas­ily, I’m concerned.”

Cor­ral said he’s lived there since 1998 and has invested more than $500,000 in his property.

“My yard is land­scaped,” he said. “If they have to scrape the ditch, my yard will be ruined.”

Cor­ral said that although he’s frus­trated, he under­stands they may have to do things that will upset him.

He said he’s also con­cerned about the impact all of this will have on the resale value of his property.

“What will hap­pen to the resale value if they have to mon­i­tor it for 10, 15, or 20 years?” he said. “I have a lot of money invested in my property.”

While the major­ity of res­i­dents are obvi­ously frus­trated, a hand­ful are pleased with the way the prob­lem is being handled.

Doris Gray, who lives in Brook­side Mobile Home Park, said she’s happy she’ll still have a place to go home to.

“I’m anx­ious to get home and it is an incon­ve­nience,” she said. “But I want it to be safe when we return.”

Gray said she knows if the sit­u­a­tion hadn’t been han­dled cor­rectly, lives could’ve been lost.

“There could’ve been an explo­sion,” she said. “We’re so lucky.”

Accord­ing to Gray, the EPA and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Sunoco Logis­tics have been helpful.

“They’re pro­vid­ing for our needs,” she said. “They’re polite and gra­cious. They con­tact us, we don’t even need to con­tact them. There’s no point in bad­ger­ing them.”

Gray said she and her hus­band, Larry Gray, stayed with fam­ily at first, but have since moved to the Ober­lin Inn.

While she wishes she could go home, she said she believes every­thing is being done to get them home as quickly as possible.

“They want to get us home as soon as they can,” she said.

Gray said she believes that if every­one didn’t react to the gas leak as quickly as they did, things would be a lot worse.

“I don’t think a lot of peo­ple under­stand the mag­ni­tude of this,” she said. “This could’ve been a major crisis.”

Posted by Terra Carlson on Jan 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.