Propane leak prompts evacuations near 201 Early Drive


This audio describes a large propane leak near a residential area at 201 Early Drive. About 5,000 gallons may be involved. Evacuations are underway for nearby buildings while responders seek hazmat support. Communications are limited due to no cell service. A motorcycle crash at the same site is noted.
Audio|Source: Amherst County Public Safety
04:17
Transcript:
(name withheld) to (name withheld) and Fire needs additional members to respond. 201 early drive, 201 early drive. Having a motorcycle accident, repeating additional members, Ops 2[1], Ops 2, (name withheld) 2, 26, on scene. (name withheld) Mac 2, 26, on scene. 6. Go ahead, (name withheld). All right. It is five tanks. They're all pretty much full from what maintenance is telling us. We're starting to follow the river down the mountain towards the gate. You can smell it when you come through the gate. We're starting to get some of us here at these first buildings. Trying to figure out what's occupied, what's not occupied. The first building here on the right is currently being occupied, so we'll probably have to start evacuating that. We've got a building in the bottom. We're going to have to start evacuating that. I'm just trying to figure out how far we're going to have to go being that's following the river down. 128 in route. Okay, copy. You want to go ahead and call the state hazmat officer? Probably a good resource to have. Yeah, there's no cell service up here, so dispatch is going to have to do everything for us. Okay, I copy. Go ahead and evacuate with you need today. Let me know what you need. I'm probably 15 now. All right, I'm going to start trying to get a headcount of what we've got. We can go from there. 8.06 Hamers. Done. Go ahead. region three for me and get them coming this way. Have them. Go ahead and next with like, please. Hammer. Hammer. Hey, tell them what you have. Tell them you need the regional hazmat officer to start responding. You'll go through the state EOC. 8.06. Okay, I got broken. But can you contact the state EOC force? I have no way of doing that up here. I need a state hazmat officer to respond. They're going to have to relay any communications with me to you. no cell phone service. I'm going to try to see if I can get access to a safe landline here that we can use for the time being. And I'll get you that number when we get it. Okay, you would contact the EOC? That's correct, I need to say. EOC contacted. We've got a very large propane leak. It could be approximately 5,000 gallons. Mine is what has lost already. We're starting evacuations here, and I need the hazmat officer to respond. They did not give an ETA. I don't know if you want to try to reach out to (name withheld) before you lose service to see if he can give us any insight as to who and what's coming. But right now it seems like it's just one big building that's occupied, so we're getting them loaded up here now and getting them out of here. And then we're all going to have to move as well at some point at least either get to higher ground or go out the bottom.
Police codes explained
The following codes appeared in the transcript and are explained below:
[1]
Ops 2: Operations Channel 2 (incident coordination)
Disclaimer:
This was transcribed by AI and may contain errors. Please verify the information independently.
Location mentioned:
Near Early Dr, Madison Heights, VA 24572
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