Allied Service Station at Budgewoi is closed and guarded by fire brigade crews

Over Christmas and just beyond there was a normal smattering of vandals at Budgewoi. Budgewoi is a quiet village sandwiched among the sandbars and dunes of the upper New South Wales Central Coast of Australia.

A significant number of the homes and apartments in the area are used as holiday homes and there is always a rise in vandalization of the township and burgleries over holiday periods.

This year there had been a number of bins in the main street burnt. When the first signs of gasoline fumes were noticed on the Scenic Drive shopping strip it was assumed the vandals had been busy trying to set the local shops alight. That was cause for some concern as the holiday vandalism was not normally sustained to such a pitch.

It is impossible to guess what was running through the minds of the shopkeepers as they washed down footpath and drain hoping to avoid a fume explosion. During the next week more and more people noticed the fumes getting worse and the hair must have been standing on end for some shopkeepers as the air became obviously inflammable. By the 20th of January that year (2011) the penny had dropped. The fumes had migrated beneath the streets and shopping strip and were issuing forth from the drains in Tenth Ave by the Tenth Ave Pharmacist and Cafe.

Locals were warned not to light a naked flame in the main street and it was suggested that lighting a cigarette on the toilet might get your butt blown off (jokingly suggested). People close to the shops were keeping naked flames away from kitchen sinks though.

Fire crews were seen all over the village peering into drains and testing the air with exotic machines. Then, suddenly, the seriousness of the situation was reinforced by a flurry of grim faced hazardous material and safety officers arriving to expand the ranks of reflective vests that filled the streets. The Allied service station had sprung a leak in one of it’s huge gasoline tanks and it had been pooling under the village for more than a week. A naked flame or unfortunate spark could devastate the whole area.

At first the crews did not have a firm view of the size of the leak and only the gas station itself was taped off. (Top left image) The nearby post office and other stores were business as usual and the alley between the streets was open as usual also.

Hazardous material truck arrives

It quickly became evident that the leak was substantial and a disaster possible so the entire block was taped off. Fire and Hazardous material crews spent the day opening larger drains and sticking some sort of sniffers down the smaller ones

I didn’t see what happened for much after that but I am guessing there was a tanker to remove the existing fuel from the tank and some sort of effort to remove the fumes and fuel from the drains. The job was done quickly as the small shopping strip was closed for only a day.

Many of the residents of Budgewoi feel some dismay as they pass the almost silent Allied Service Station. We were proud of the independent business and their owners and staff are members of the community. The tanks remain closed although the shop behind them is open and staffed.

There is often small unexpected advantage in disasters and in this case it is a bonus for Budgewoi Mechanical Repairers who operate out of the same building. They have the area in front of the service station to themselves and free of the queues of cars at the pumps. They would not have wished it but for a while they can walk in front of the building without getting run over.

We all hope the little Budgewoi Allied Service Station survives and is back operating soonest

Hazardous material, fire brigade and safety crew searching the drains

NSW Fire Brigade, alongside Coles at Budgewoi, enforcing street closure on the last day