Months Long Gas Leak Sickens California Community

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Laura Gideon and her family endured the sickening stench from an out-of-control natural gas leak for about a month before they could no longer tolerate the nausea, headaches and nosebleeds. After she went to the emergency room in November vomiting and with a severe migraine, Gideon, her husband and their two children abandoned the only home they'd ever known together in the upscale Los Angeles suburb of Porter Ranch. They moved in with her parents about 10 miles away to await a fix that could still be months away. "We're in mourning now," she said. "We didn't ever want to leave. We were in a nice gated community. We were safe, you know, supposedly good schools. This wasn't our plan." Thousands of her neighbors have voluntarily followed suit in an exodus from an invisible threat that wafts occasionally and doesn't sicken everyone in its path, though it continues to spew enormous amounts of climate-changing methane. The leak has cost the utility $50 million so far and is expected to balloon as the company tries a tricky fix to plug a well deep underground, while also shelling out compensation for exasperated residents and fighting dozens of lawsuits. Gov. Jerry Brown declared an emergency last week for the prolonged blowout that requires the utility to cover the costs and instructs state regulators to protect ratepayers.
Source: JEMS: Journal of Emergency Medical Services News - Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: General News Source Type: news