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Fuel spill cleaned up at Houston airport
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Flights at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, were back to normal Sunday morning after a 200-gallon jet fuel spill prompted authorities to evacuate passengers from the nation's seventh-busiest airport. The spill occurred shortly before 9 p.m. (10 p.m. EST) Saturday at Terminal B, which serves Continental Express and Northwest Airlines, and is one of the airport's four terminals, said spokesman Ernie DeSoto. "Everything is back up and running," he said Sunday morning. A construction crew was working on underground fuel lines when the spill occurred. "The valve either stuck or failed to work or something," DeSoto said. "It got on the apron and flowed into the street between the aircraft and the terminal." With crews working to determine how widespread the spill was, the airport's underground shuttle train was halted for several hours, and passengers were put in buses instead, DeSoto said. The shuttle returned to normal service around midnight. Roads around the terminal were closed until early Sunday morning. "It was a mess for a while," DeSoto said. "Luckily, it happened late."
Environmental and hazardous materials workers had vacuumed the spill up by midnight. During that time, no flights were canceled; flights that had been scheduled from the terminal were shuttled to other terminals, DeSoto said. Extra law enforcement personnel were on duty with the Thanksgiving rush close at hand, DeSoto said, and "we had the staff to be able to shut the road down and move the stuff around." The airport moves 35 million passengers per year. Saturday's passenger count was about 90,000, a normal load, DeSoto said.
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