Huge explosion near a family member's house!! Crap!

[Crinale]

wait you smelled propane really bad for a whole week prior to this?

methinks the gas company is gonna have some lawsuits on their hands...

[troyboy162]

wait you smelled propane really bad for a whole week prior to this?

methinks the gas company is gonna have some lawsuits on their hands...

it might be hard for people to win if they all say they smelled the gas for a week.

[Erich_870]

it might be hard for people to win if they all say they smelled the gas for a week.

I see it as the other way around. If only one person reports it and the gas company couldn't find a leak in thier system for a week and then it blows up, that's pretty much entirely on the gas company.

You can't appear to take your time or give the impression to the public that a leak is unimportant to your company then have a whole neighborhood explode and kill 6 people and not get your pants sued off!

Erich

[troyboy162]

..if anyone reported it

[wifesaysimadumbass]

As most of you know i work for San Diego Gas and Electric. We've been inunudated with calls since this happen. As far as our company goes we take leak calls very seriously we do lots of checks especially if we recieve multiple calls. Where I think this went wrong is most of the time when searching for a leak you are searching the smaller service that go to the individual houses. We were almost never looking for a 24 inch main to be leaking! Transmission lines have a different department that maintains all their systems. Somehow the leak got missed and was probably thought to be any number of things that people think erroneaously are gas leaks. Anyway you look at it Shis has hit the fan and every utility is watching what happens and is try to check their stuff right now

[paddlenbike]

That is crazy. A contractor hit a gas main about 1/4 mile from my house last week. There was a knock on my door at nearly 10:00pm--PG&E had to turn off the gas mains to 1,500 individual houses and they were out turning them back on and relighting people's hotwater heaters and furnaces. They said that contractor's mistake caused two days of a major highway closure, full-time crews (from out of the area) working overnight on the repair, traffic control, service reconnection to 1,500 homes, etc., will cost the contractor nearly a million dollars. That was without a fire and fatalities, you can imagine what the San Bruno situation is going to cost.

[Seanz0rz]

at cal poly pomona, with all the construction, a gas line is ruptured about once a month. amazing no one has died...

[4x4mike]

I read yesterday that PG&E set up a $100M fund for the victims. The money is for their day to day expenses and comes with no strings. They also gave the city $3m to cover the city's expenses for handing the incident. Residents who had home destroyed or damaged are getting $50,000 checks and residents were told the checks would not preclude them from taking further legal action against PG&E.

Bummer all around. Looks like PG&E is stepping up to the plate but it's too bad there had to be so much devistation.

[Seanz0rz]

and this really could happen anywhere. i know on the street i live on (right at the point where it narrows from 4 to 2 lanes) there is a sizable gas line that feeds all the neighborhoods around me.

anyone remember the duffy street accident in '89? i was almost 3 so i dont, but my mom and i were driving down hwy 18 to see my dad in the hospital after our accident in the mountains. she remembers seeing a fireball higher than we were. horrible accident.

i guess if it's your time to go, the universe will find a way.

[Bob98SR5]

Mikey, what do you do for SDG&E? I work for SCE. i hear ya on the shizzle hitting the fan every once in awhile. while theres no excuse for negligence, shizzle happens. i'm still learning more about this incident, i have not drawn any conclusions or come to any finger pointing.

if people were truly smelling it for a week, theyd be driven out of their homes. natural gas and propane are the most disgusting smells. correct me if i'm wrong, but gas companies who make natural gas and propane add some sick smelling crap to it so leaks are immediately detectable by the nose