85 children evacuated from day care after gas line break

ATLANTA — A gas main leak that forced dozens of children from a day care is capped but it is still causing traffic delays.

Channel 2’s Richard Elliot was there as firefighters and police helped evacuate the children and load them onto air conditioned MARTA buses in northwest Atlanta.

Crews got the 85 children safely away from the Kids Time Daycare Center any way they could.

Atlanta firefighters put the smallest ones, some just 6 weeks old, inside a mobile crib and rolled them down the street.

Others led the toddlers away by hand.

Some firefighters picked up as many kids as they could and carried them down the street.

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That's where MARTA police helped guide them into a waiting air conditioned bus so they could be out of the hot sun.

One of the day care workers told Elliot that the crews came by and warned them what had happened.

At first they were told to stay in place, but then firefighters came and got them all out.

“The kids are fine. We're just loading them up because we got a gas problem around the day care,” said one day care instructor, who identified herself as Mrs. Sanders.

That problem happened when, according to firefighters, a crew laying some fiber optics along H. E. Holmes Drive punctured a gas line in three places.

The high-pressure gas shot out into the air sending a column of dirt and dust with it.

“Atlanta Gas Light is obviously taking this very seriously. They have processes that they have to go through to safely stop this leak. You can't just go in there and stick a plug into it, so to speak,” said Sgt. Cortez Stafford, with the Atlanta Fire Rescue.

After several hours, the crews were able to cap off the leak.

The children were taken away to another day care center where their parents could come pick them up.

Cox Media Group