UPDATE: Car Collides With Traville Gateway Building Gas Line, Causes Leak

Update, 11:40 a.m.:

After standing in the 90 degree heat for more than an hour, people were allowed back into the Traville Gateway buildings just after 11 a.m., Thursday.

Meanwhile, police investigators and bystanders tried to determine what had led the driver of a white Infiniti to drive up onto the sidewalk and strike the building gas line outside Studio 310.

Debbie Ross and Alyson Lobel were getting ready for their 9:30 a.m. kickboxing class at Studio 310 when they heard a loud crash, they told Patch.

Another woman was walking along the sidewalk into the class when the car drove up on the sidewalk. She told Ross and Lobel that she narrowly escaped getting hit by running inside the Studio 310 building.

Ross and Lobel said they came outside and found a woman sitting in the white Infiniti that had just crashed into the gas line, taking out a light pole along the way. Several of the women in the 12-15 person class helped the driver out of the car. Ross and Lobel said they could smell gas right away.

"I just grabbed my fanny pack and ran," Lobel said. She said they had not received any instruction from police but knew they should evacuate as quickly as possible.

"It was definitely scary," Ross told Patch. "People just started running."

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue crews arrived on the scene shortly after and began to hose down the area to saturate the area enough to prevent the stray gas from igniting.

A Montgomery County Police investigator is analyzing the events and talking to witnesses in order to determine how the accident occurred. Tire tracks on the sidewalk indicate the driver pulled into a parking spot by Bageltowne and accelerated onto the sidewalk.

Original Post, 10:20 a.m.:

Several buildings in the Traville Gateway Shopping Center were evacuated Thursday morning after a vehicle struck a building and caused a leak in the natural gas line.

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue crews arrived at the scene in the 9700 block of Traville Gateway Drive at 9:40 a.m., according to Montgomery County Fire and Rescue spokesman Capt. Oscar Garcia.

Crews transported the driver of the passenger vehicle to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, Garcia said.

People were asked to evacuate buildings at 9755, 9751, 9748 and 9746 Traville Gateway Drive as a precaution. Crews monitored the neighboring buildings for gas leaks, but people were not asked to evacuate.

A representative from Washington Gas arrived on the scene shortly after 10 a.m. and he successfully stopped the gas leak, according to Garcia.

No other injuries have been reported. It is not yet known what caused the car to strike the building.

At 10:20 a.m., crews were still at the scene.