Springfield Natural Gas Explosion UPDATE: Federal, state and local agencies to investigate incident - KY3

Springfield Natural Gas Explosion UPDATE: Federal, state and local agencies to investigate incident

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - It’s an important part of our lives that we use for such things as cooking or heating our homes and water.

But we really don’t think about it much until something happens, as it did on Monday in a neighborhood near Lake Springfield.

“There is an inherent risk that goes along with natural gas,” said City Utilities Director of Media and Energy Services Joel Alexander. “Just like there is with electricity.”

That risk reared its head around 11:30 Monday morning when CU crews were doing maintenance work on a gas line in southeast Springfield.

“It was a larger line, a transmission line that carries 150-pounds-per-square-inch,” Alexander explained. “It actually feeds natural gas throughout the city and branches off into the distribution feeds. So the folks were working on a valve in there and believed it had been secured, but something failed. We’re still trying to ascertain what caused it to fail. Once that failed, though, it allowed the natural gas to flow freely, and the crew equated it with being like a jet engine, just going wide open. At that point, something, which could have been a couple of rocks hitting together or a rock hitting a piece of exposed pipe, caused a spark that ignited into flames.”

Three CU says workers were in the pit near the fire when it happened. All escaped with minor injuries. However, there was damage to CU vehicles around the pit, power poles, and homes near the site.

“There were two homes that sustained a bit of damage, and we are working with those homeowners to make those repairs as soon as possible,” Alexander said.

Gary Evans lives right next door to the explosion site, and although his windows didn’t break, the side of his house facing the fire pit has considerable damage to the siding.

“It’s pretty well melted off,” he said. “I wasn’t here when it happened, but when I got here, flames were about 60 feet in the air, and it was very hot. I was standing out in the street about 150 feet away from the fire, and I could feel the heat off of it. But it could have been a lot worse.”

While police and fire units quickly arrived on the scene to move people away from the explosion site, the blaze was allowed to burn itself out, a standard procedure for natural gas fires.

“The best way to take care of a natural gas situation is to let it burn off on its own until we can shut off those lines completely,” Alexander said. “What we did was shut off the north-and-sides of the pipeline so it couldn’t get any more fuel coming in and then let it burn itself off.”

“We train on this,” added Springfield Fire Department Battalion Chief Christopher Roush. “Even at the basic level in the academy, we learn that if you have an escaping flammable gas that’s on fire, then part of the problem is already handled. It looks bad, it sounds bad, but the reality is if it’s burning, it’s consuming itself to a great degree, and we don’t have to worry about it migrating to other areas.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, Alexander said that all 1,700 customers who had lost power because of the fire had their electricity restored, and the four customers who lost gas service were also back online.

“Today we were putting back up the high-voltage, 69,000-volt line back into service,” he pointed out. “So there might have been a couple of ‘blinks’ as we switched back into normal operating status. But soon, we’ll be back to where everything was prior to this.”

Agencies at the federal, state, and local level will be conducting investigations into the cause of the fire. At the federal level, it’s the Department of Transportation. At the state level, it’s the Public Service Commission. Locally it will be City Utilities.

“We feel this was an equipment failure,” Alexander said. “But as with any disaster like this, there are many questions to be asked. And since natural gas travels through a pipeline, the federal Department of Transportation is involved because they oversee that. It’s very rare that this happens, but natural gas is an important part of our lives. Is it safe? We feel it’s very safe. But occasionally, you’re going to have a situation that shows just how dangerous it can be.”

“Considering we could have had a serious loss of life from something like this, all the safety protocols in place kept that from happening,” Roush added. “Honestly, it went really well, all things considered. The outcome was much better than it could have been.”

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