In late October, when Bovina resident David Chaney called 911 officials to report a roar of fumes escaping from a natural gas pipeline station near his home, he said emergency officials were temporarily at a loss for what to do. That was upsetting, he said, especially since there was a similar eruption Wednesday.

After calling last month, “The response back to me was, “Is anyone hurt?'” Chaney said. No one was, but he said the dispatchers weren’t sure whom to call. Volunteer fire crews responded and ordered Chaney and his family to evacuate.

“We got to come back in at 12 at night,” Chaney said. “The story that we got is that it blew the pop-off valve and there was so much gas escaping that it froze the valve,” He said gas, which is highly explosive, escaped from a 4-inch line for several hours.

No report was made of the incident and Warren County Fire Coordinator Kelly Worthy, who is also the county’s environmental officer, said Wednesday that the equipment functioned as designed and there was no emergency. He said neither incident involved a broken line.

Information was posted on a fence that surrounds the valve station, but “it still took about two hours to determine who owned the pipeline.” Chaney said. When crews arrived to make repairs, they assured him that the malfunction was uncommon and that the equipment functioned as designed.

Still, on Wednesday morning, Chaney received a call from his father telling him that it was happening again. His father, Mark J. Chaney, had gone to the property to check on cattle when he was met by an emergency blockade. Officials Wednesday again determined that the equipment was functioning as designed.

The largest and clearest sign on the fence around the site identifies a Dallas company, Crosstex Energy, as the contact. However, Crosstex spokesman Jill McMillan said the company shares some facilities with Houston company Centerpoint Energy. McMillan said Crosstex engineers said that they were not aware of any incidents at the site. “All we have out there is a meter station,” McMillan said. A spokesman for Centerpoint Energy was not available this morning.

The station is on 16th Section land that abuts Chaney’s property. Local school districts own 16th Section lands under the supervision of the Secretary of State. The title to lands is vested in the state of Mississippi. The districts execute leases on the land and the income is considered a local funding source that may be spent for educational use. This year’s budget forecast showed that the school district expects about $1 million in 16th Section land revenue from leases, oil and gas royalties, timber sales and interest.

David Chaney, who teaches at the Vicksburg campus of Hinds Community College and manages about 100 cattle on the property, repeated that the occasional blasts of gas are not as worrisome as the difficulty officials seemed to have in tracking down the right information. The station was present when Chaney moved into the house about three years ago. In the October incident, the sound of the escaping gas was so loud, “you couldn’t stand on the porch and hold a conversation,” he said.

“I don’t think you can ever be 100 percent prepared for anything that can happen,” but “I think we’re as well prepared as we can be,” said Warren County District 1 Supervisor David McDonald, who also serves on the county’s E-911 Commission.

McDonald said that county disaster plans are continually reviewed and evolve based on the probability of a particular event happening. For example, he said tornadoes are more likely than ice storms in Warren County, so more time has been spent readying for those. “But a lot of the equipment you need for tornadoes are the same resources you need for ice storms,” when trees are down and power is off in both circumstances.

For other problems like the Oct. 3 incident where about 30 barges broke loose on the Mississippi River and struck the Interstate 20 bridge, “We do the best we can,” he said. That included enlisting the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Ergon, who came to the aid of the county. “We’ve got a good working relationship. They have a lot of resources available that have equipment that we can call on,”

The valve station is about one-third of a mile from Chaney’s house on Brabston Road near Clear Creek Recreation Area, but it is also about 200 feet from the eastbound lanes of Interstate 20, another fact that worries Chaney.

“If I need to evacuate, I’ll evacuate,” he said but he questioned the reasoning of why traffic on the highway wasn’t restricted or stopped until officials determined there was no threat. He worries that if the problem had been serious, Warren County might have experienced a similar disaster as Clarke County residents.

The Nov. 2 explosion of a propane pipeline and subsequent fire near Quitman killed two, injured four and forced the evacuation of residents in a one -mile radius. In that case, officials say the incident was a catastrophic failure. No malfunctions or tampering are suspected.

“That’s something I don’t want to happen here,” Chaney said.

McDonald said the decision to evacuate is left up to emergency personnel on the scene. “It just depends on how much information you have,” he said. And having the right information, especially updated contacts for utilities, is something McDonald said the Legislature might have to help local governments address. Sometimes, “We go to call the number and they’re like, ‘We sold that a year ago,'” McDonald said. “Nobody bothered to call us and tell us.”