Va. Hotel Evacuated Due To Carbon Monoxide Leak

A word to the wise for hotel owners: Why don’t you just install carbon monoxide detectors, whether the law requires you to or not?

In the latest incident involving a carbon monoxide leak at a hotel, on Wednesday more than 70 people had to be evacuated from a Virginia Beach, Va., hotel because of this deadly, odorless gas, according to WVEC.com.

http://www.wvec.com/my-city/vabeach/Beach-hotel-evacuated-after-carbon-monoxide-leak-190224621.html

It all happened at the Homewood Suites on Cleveland Street, as guests and employees were sent to another local hotel when firefighters came to scene at 10 p.m.

They found high levels of carbon monoxide on a number of floors of the six-story hotel, and traced the leak to a natural gas heater on the building’s roof, WVEC.com reported. That heater warmed the hotel’s common areas.

Firefighters made sure that the gas was out of the hotel, a process that took about three hours, and the place was opened up again, according to WVEC.com.

The local fire chief said that the Homewood Suites doesn’t have carbon monoxide detectors because they were not mandated by law when it was built, WVEC.com reported. Under the law, just buildings built since 2009 must install carbon monoxide alarms.

Hotel owner, if you want to save yourself some legal fees defending yourself from a lawsuit, put in the CO detectors. More on that in my next blog.