I was one of the customers who woke up Friday morning and smelt gas additive.  Anyone else experience this?

"Southlake police said the company told them it used too much mercaptan — a type of strong-smelling gas that’s added to natural gas to make it easier to detect"

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dallasnews.com/news/2022/04/14/atmos-energy-customers-in-north-texas-report-smelling-gas-thursday-after-company-over-odorized-lines/%3foutputType=amp

"Over-Odorized" isn't the same as "Over-Pressurized".

The former is a nuisance.

The latter could be...spectacular.

If you can smell it, doesn’t that mean there is still a leak of natural gas?

My guess is that if the odorant was present in sufficient concentration, you could smell it coming from burners and pilot lights that were operating normally.

Right.  One article specifically stated they over pressurized the system when adding the mercaptan.  And that they are "burning off" the excess gas.  Most likely to relive the extra pressure.

The leak I smelt Friday morning was in the space below the attic stairs.  I went into the attic to investigate and there was a strong smell from the joint around the ball valve to the furnace.  I haven't run the furnace in several months so there was no combustion occurring and the furnace does not have a pilot light.

From what I read I concluded that the over pressurized gas supply caused a leak at the weakest joint in my gas lines.

I saw this posted for another neighborhood somewhere else too. I guess residential is more susceptible. My meter is set up to run up to 25psi, but it only runs 10 and then I have to step it down from there. All new service.

My other business location, fucking meter always smells like gas. They've worked on it over the years but I'm sure it's in the ground and they really don't want to dig it up and replace it. $$$$$$

You may have had a small leak already, but only smelled the odorant when it was present in much higher concentration.

Even if the NG distribution lines had been overpressurized, it would have somehow had to get past the pressure regulator installed at every residence.

Correct
My company is currently flaring excess mercaptan for Atmos. Probably lines from the Op's network.
I hate flaring mercaptac. Heavy shit. Not fun.

You're assuming those devices actually work.  The gas shutoff valve doesn't work well.  After I shutoff at the meter, ran the stovetop range to burn any gas in the line, then disconnected the furnace supply from the main line, gas kept flowing out.  Same issue with my shutoff valve at the water main.  Turn it off and water still flows at about a gallon every half hour.  Called the city and they said the shutoff valve is fine.

Atmos has been pretty good to us as far as servicing their meters and shutoff's. Just be aware if you call them out to check on something and your side doesn't hold pressure, they may not turn it back on until you get a plumber out there to fix it and assure them it's under control.

We had a problem with our water meter/main. It wouldn't shut off. We had a leak on the line between the meter and the first valve. We had the city out 4 or 5 years ago, they couldn't get it shut off, so they "scheduled" a replacement. We finally got it fixed with the water running. It ran at a few gallons per minute. It sucked and the city never came out to replace the valve.

Last month we found another leak on a steel/iron line. Bad. Patch just slowed it down. They finally came out and replaced the valve. Clipped our line with a backhoe in the process, so 3 - 1.5" pvc lines ended up getting patched. We were able to isolate the iron pipe. Shut it off and reroute through our other PVC lines. But it's almost like we had to beg the city to get the service valve replaced.