A natural gas leak that shut down parts of Colborne, Wyandotte and Mississaga streets in Orillia Tuesday afternoon at about 2 p.m. has finally been fixed.
Enbridge reported at about 6 p.m. that the repairs were completed.
Yesterday, soon after the gas leak was detected, officials estimated the roads in the area would be closed and gas shut off for five to seven hours to fix the leak.
While it's not clear what caused the leak or why it took so long to fix, Enbridge service representatives planned to go door-to-door to enter affected homes and businesses at 7 p.m. this evening to safely re-light appliances.
The lengthy repair operation forced the closure of several businesses in the area, including Eclectic Cafe and Tiffany's Hair and Company.
It also had a major impact on Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital.
When the gas leak was first detected, access to the hospital's main public parking lot and four staff parking areas was immediately closed off. People were permitted to drive out, but no vehicles were allowed to enter.
For some hospital visitors, that meant a longer-than-normal walk to the main entrance, where a lot of pick-ups and drop-offs occur. Some of that traffic was diverted to the west entrance (dialysis) with the help of volunteers and temporary signs.
New staff coming into work the night shift were redirected to another parking area for the night.
On top of that, the natural gas supply to the hospital was eventually shut off as a precaution and operations was switched over to ts diesel-powered generator.
It made things challenging as the hospital uses natural gas to run its steam generators that help run the facility's kitchens and its medical device reprocessing department, which disinfects surgical instruments.
Despite all that, officials managed to keep everything up and running and there was, thankfully, no impact to patient-care services.
