My building experienced a gas leak
It happened early. My lovely supervisor was the only one in the building. The smell was so strong from the back door that the fire dept literally ran over from the station nearby. They said the building was at something like 26% concentration in one area and could have exploded and immediately evacuated her. I can’t get over how surreal that seems. It was intensely strong when I arrived but at that point they said we were allowed to go back in (seems crazy because the smell was still so strong). Apparently someone crashed a car into something behind the building over night (cars don’t go there) and caused it to build up to this point slowly. Alls fixed and no one hurt but…yeah.
I told her it all reminded me of the opening scene of a drama between a medical personnel and a firefighter.
smell is mercaptan and it's added to the gas. it lingers.
that said, there was a leak here a few years ago. I was working oddly enough in HVAC wholesale. I was 4.7km (2.93miles) from the source of the leak at the time and you could smell the mercaptan in the air. it took over every neighborhood by smell only.
it's intense stuff for sure
Oh yeah it was. I’ve heard it smells like eggs but before today I’d never encountered it. To me it was more like an uncleaned stove ring. Metallic and dingy. I was surprised it was safe to be in the building with it. But glad it’s so strong because it may have saved my boss (this all went down early AM).