natural gas explosion in my home town

We may earn a small commission from affiliate links and paid advertisements. Terms

chadcharb

Well-Known Member
VIP
Friday at about 345am there was a natural gas explosion that rocked the little town. Woke my parents up that live about 3 miles away and my sister who lives about 7 miles away. Pretty crazy and lucky that it happened at the time it did considering its right on the main street in town. here is a before and after pic of the spot.

1545703_786596771350768_1523609273674300873_n.jpg


this les schuabe is about a half a block away

4914-Explode-LesSchwabdoors-W-.jpg



and heres an aerial photo

10168075_770692709616940_225417757999823499_n.jpg


look throuh the pics in the link. pretty crazy stuff. i worked at the pizza place all through high school and got my hair cut at the barber shop my whole life...


http://www.valleyrecord.com/news/256750561.html?mobile=true
 
Last edited:
everytime i see the price of NG vs oil i hate that i don't have it....

and then i see these and say yup, glad i don't have that
 
IMG_9163-w-.jpg

Sign is still standing though...
 
yea ther barber shop is the building still standing in that pic and i dont know how it didnt get knocked over either? it just burned down...
 
everytime i see the price of NG vs oil i hate that i don't have it....

and then i see these and say yup, glad i don't have that
Because oil is non-combustible? Seriously dude, accidents happen, and maintenance is required for everything.
 
Because oil is non-combustible? Seriously dude, accidents happen, and maintenance is required for everything.
im really wondering if this wasnt an accident though. this building has been being remodeled for months now and they just recently discovered that there were some big issues that they didnt know about. last week they got a permit to replace gas lines then boom...kinda seems fishy
 
It's pretty safe to assume that any natural gas explosion in the US is either due to negligence, or it was intentional. It's very rare for explosions to happen when the UL has not been voided, and routine maintenance has been performed.
 
I've never seen a maintenance crew for gas lines unless there is already a failure.
never preventative.
You have a job, right? Maintenance happens during regular business hours. Also, there is maintenance required at the end-user as well. Looks like the explosion occurred in the building, not underground.
 
everytime i see the price of NG vs oil i hate that i don't have it....

and then i see these and say yup, glad i don't have that

I will beat the drum here for fuel marketers (since I work with quite a few - although since natural gas is a utility, I do no work with them and have no counterpoint on their perspective other than that the price is lower now).

Everywhere else in the world, natural gas prices and oil prices are near parity. In the United States, there is regulation that prevents the export and there are no good pipelines to get the natural gas out of the country. Once our domestic natural gas producers can sell their product overseas at 5-10x the selling point that they achieve in the US then natural gas prices are going to go through the roof and will balance out with oil prices. Yes, right now natural gas is cheaper - but the conversion is costly. You are talking $5,000-$10,000 up front for an oil to gas conversion. If the prices even out in less than five years, you likely will not have saved enough to offset your initial investment. They are trying to put the pipeline through now the US to the coast but some environmentalist and other groups are blocking the pipeline. If this pipeline does not work, they are likely going to make a pipeline to from the oil reserves in the Midwest to Canada and then export through the ports in western Canada. China is dying for more natural gas.

We are currently looking for houses and I would lean towards a house with natural gas because its more cost effective right now but if we bought a house with oil heat - unless it was very old, inefficient and on its last legs, I would ride it out until the furnace crapped out.
 
We've had 2 pretty large explosions here in the last couple years. One was a house about 1/2 mile from my moms. Guy got killed. It was due to negligence by the maintenance crew replacing a line in the street. They apparently jarred the line enough that it caused a very small leak in the house, knew they may have caused a problem, and didn't follow the proper procedures. The house blew up when the guy was sleeping.

Other one was an insurance job at a commercial laundromat maybe 2 miles from where I work. "Somehow" a 5 inch gas main was left wide open after hours. The guy left 2 Mercedes and his boat in the parking lot right next to the building. It was a cinder block structure and the shit was everywhere. I think something like 25 or 30 houses had to be condemned in the surrounding area because they were all blown off the foundations or otherwise damaged. There was broken windows for like a mile up the street.

Obviously both were preventable. I wouldn't trade my cheap for now natural gas for anything. Not to much oil heat left around here, most people in the country have switched to propane if they can't get natural gas piped to them, although propane costs were outrageous with as cold as the winter was.
 
Because oil is non-combustible? Seriously dude, accidents happen, and maintenance is required for everything.
combustible, yes,

but it's pretty damn hard for it to 'blow up' like these Ng explosions do.

if my oil tank leaks, i'll know about it... because it will be a mess. not because I blew up
 
I wonder what the accident rate is per 100,000 homes for NG is.

Nothing can be worse than baseboard heaters burning the house down.
 
In the Midwest, there's literally not a house you can buy that doesn't have NG pipes. My parent's house is in the middle of the woods and cannot get water pipes (wellwater) or sewer pipes (septic system) from the town in 2014, but there's been NG there since the house was built in the 50's.

NG is as safe as anything else when used correctly, and as dangerous as anything else when not maintained. It's just regular human nature to fear what you're not used to. Heck, my father in law is a very well educated engineer and he was afraid of our lawn mower taking off his feet when he first used it here, since they don't have lawns in Japan.
 
What is the Risk of an Explosion or Fire From No. 2 Home Heating Oil Fumes?
Heating oil needs to be heated to 140 degF and sprayed or atomized in order to burn.
 
Back
Top