“Noxious Odor” Hits Northeast Philadelphia

Utility companies say it wasn't gas fumes.

NBC 10 reports that a “noxious odor” spread across Northeast Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon. “I think it smells sort of like manure or rotting organic matter. My friend thinks it smells like gas,” said a resident in the Rhawnhurst section of the city who asked to remain anonymous. Firefighters dispatched to the area, however, found no source of the odor.

Philly.com adds: “In a swath of territory that stretched from Germantown through Northeast Philadelphia into lower Bucks County, people thought they smelled natural gas Sunday.They didn’t, say both PGW and PECO, which supply gas to the region and investigated many calls from worried residents. Both concluded they were not the source of what PGW spokeswoman Melanie McCottry called a ‘foreign odor.'”