February 7, 2010

 

Middletown, Connecticut (CNN) — Five people were killed and at least 12 were injured in a gas explosion Sunday at an under-construction power plant in central Connecticut, local officials said.

 

Residents up to 20 miles away reported hearing the blast at about 11:19 a.m. at the Kleen Power Plant in Middletown, a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut.

 

“There is no present or continuing threat to anybody from either substances getting into the atmosphere or of a possible subsequent explosion,” Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano said, adding terrorism has been ruled out.

 

He said plant workers were purging a natural gas pipeline when the explosion occurred.

 

“Urban search-and-rescue teams are on the premises … with dogs, attempting to locate and account for further victims,” Giuliano said.

 

It’s unknown how many people were working in the plant, which was about 95 percent complete, at the time of the explosion. Multiple contractors were involved in the project, Giuliano said, complicating efforts to account for those who may have been on the site.

 

“[Each contractor] has their own foreperson, their own employee list, so we’re trying to sort that out,” Giuliano said.

 

Deputy Fire Marshal Al Santostefano said later Sunday that no one has come forward with any names of missing people and dogs have not detected signs of life beneath the rubble left by the explosion.

 

The plant was expected to go online this summer, Giuliano said.

 

Santostefano initially said about 50 people, most of them construction workers, were working at the time, but Giuliano said “we don’t know that as a hard number right now.”

 

“What I’ve been told by the owners of the project is that there could be anywhere from 100 to 200 people working on the site on any given day,” Giuliano said.

 

But Santostefano later said the numbers Giuliano cited were weekday figures, and he repeated his estimate of 50 to 60 people at the site Sunday when the explosion occurred. He said he thought most of those escaped the blast.

 

A no-fly zone was established over the site because of the unstable structure, Gov. Jodi Rell announced Sunday night.

 

Middlesex Hospital in Middletown said it received 11 patients from the explosion. One patient with serious injuries was flown to a hospital in Hartford, and another was transferred to Yale New Haven Hospital, according to a statement on Middlesex’s Web site. Two others had minor injuries and were treated and released. The remaining seven patients sustained injuries “mainly to the extremities, including broken bones, blunt trauma and abdominal pains,” the statement said.

 

Emergency room physician Dr. Jonathan Bankoff told reporters that some patients reported being thrown 30 or 40 feet by the blast.

 

Two people were airlifted directly to the Hartford hospital from the scene, Middlesex spokesman R. Brian Albert said. A center was being set up at Middletown’s City Hall for relatives of plant workers, he said.

 

As of late Sunday afternoon, the hospital said it was not expecting more patients from the plant.

 

After the explosion, it took a while for emergency crews to get into the plant, Santostefano said, because the plant was on fire and the natural gas had to be turned off at the source. No major incidents at the site had been reported since construction began there a couple of years ago, he said.

 

People miles away reported hearing or feeling the blast.

 

“It felt like the house was shaking,” Peter Moore, who lives about 10 miles away in Durham, told CNN. He said he thought at first there had been a traffic accident on his street or there was a problem with his house.

 

Moore said his mother, who lives in Woodbridge, about 20 miles away from the plant, also said she heard the explosion, and said it “sounded like someone pounded on the back door a couple of times.”

 

“It was almost like an earthquake,” nearby resident Lynn Townsend told CNN affiliate WTNH. She said she heard the explosion and went outside to see “a very big, bright orange flame” between the plant’s two smokestacks, and immediately dialed 911.

 

“It really shook the house,” she said. “Everybody was scared. The kids started to cry.

 

Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance told WTNH his agency has received “an immense amount of inquiries” from residents who heard or felt the explosion.

 

If you or anyone you know was injured or killed in the power plant gas explosion, please feel free to contact the Hayes Firm online or call 1-800-603-6833.  We will work to find the best attorney in your area to advise you and fight for your rights. 

 

Posted October 28, 2009

By Mark Millican, the Daily Citizen

 

An alleged “history” of gas leaks and problems associated with galvanized piping at the Dalton Housing Authority complex on Underwood Street may form the basis of a wrongful death lawsuit following two deaths in an explosion and fire there, an attorney said Tuesday.

 

 

Jeffery Chad Nations, 34, of apartment 410, Underwood Court, died two days after the Aug. 22 explosion that rocked the residential neighborhood in east Dalton. His mother, Martha Sue Nations, 56, of the same address, died on Sept. 27. Both were in the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta when they died.

 

 

Since the explosion, several investigators have scoured the scene, including from the DHA’s insurance company, local and state fire agencies, and an examiner hired by Nations family attorney Genevieve Frazier.

 

 

Frazier said she has interviewed neighbors of the family at Underwood Court and two former employees in the city maintenance department and found there is a history of complaints about gas leaks and “problems” with the piping.

 

 

“Witnesses say the fire department came in and said there were problems with the galvanized piping, problems with rusting,” she said. “The rusting also affects the smell of the gas, and can pull in chemicals (with the gas). My understanding is that the fire department recommended the piping be replaced and it was not.”

 

 

Dalton Fire Chief Bruce Satterfield said he is “familiar” with some of the statements coming from Frazier and witnesses she’s interviewed since he has received two Open Records Act requests for information.

 

 

“I’ve looked back and found one instance — it was sometime between 2004 and 2006, I can’t remember exactly because I don’t have the records right in front of me — where there was a gas leak (at the housing complex), but it was not in that same (apartment) facility,” he said. “We shut the gas off at the facility, contacted Dalton Utilities, which locks the gas out, and turned it over to the housing authority maintenance crew for repair. Dalton Utilities must see that (the piping) is fixed before they’ll turn the gas back on.”

 

 

Satterfield disputed the statement that the fire department had recommended that gas pipes be replaced.

 

 

“We have found no evidence or knowledge where this department — through our records management system, nor through our two code enforcement officers — ever told the housing authority that pipes needed to be replaced in the entire facility,” he said.

 

 

Satterfield said he believed Frazier was “testing the waters” with the records requests to get at the veracity of the witness statements.

 

 

“We have shut other apartments down before due to gas or electric problems,” he added. “It’s all documented, and we always check to see they’re back up to code before the gas or electricity is turned back on.”

 

 

The department is still waiting on “expert documentation” as to the cause of the explosion from James Dido, a mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer Joe Nemeth, he said.

 

 

Satterfield asked the members of the Public Safety Commission on Tuesday whether legal fees would be paid by the city or come out of his fire department budget. City attorney Jim Bisson said an “ad litem notice” — which state law requires before a government entity can be sued — has been filed, and that the city had responded.

 

 

“I have no idea what the fees are at this point, or who will bear the charges,” he said. “We do have an insurance carrier and they have been notified.”

 

 

Satterfield said the legal fees were around $500, stemming largely from the records requests, and that the invoice had been mistakenly sent to his department.

 

 

“They sent me the bill, but the city is named in the (ad litem filing of the) lawsuit,” he said.

 

 

City finance director Cindy Jackson said the legal bill would likely go through the administrative budget.

 

By Holbrook Mohr – The Associated Press

Published October 1, 2009

 

JACKSON, Miss. — International Paper Co. has settled another federal lawsuit stemming from a 2008 explosion that killed a contract worker at a Mississippi plant and injured nearly two dozen others.

 

Cases involving several injured workers are still pending.

 

The most recent case to settle was closed Tuesday by U.S. Magistrate John M. Roper. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. At least three other federal lawsuits ended in settlements in September. The terms of those deals were also sealed.

 

The explosion killed 28-year-old Marcus Christopher Broome and injured 22 others at International Paper’s Redwood plant on May 3, 2008. The plant, about 30 miles west of Jackson, cooks fiber to make liner board, which is used for manufacturing corrugated containers.

 

Several workers were left with serious burns or other injuries when a 12-story recovery boiler exploded as workers tried to restart it after annual maintenance.

 

“The manner in which the recovery boiler was brought on line at the Redwood plant was extremely reckless and in complete disregard for the welfare of everyone working on and around the boiler that day,” said Billy Quin, an attorney for plaintiffs in several cases.

 

“We believe that these lawsuits and the settlements that have been reached to date have caused International Paper to overhaul the safety standards associated with the startup of recovery boilers at all of its plants,” Quin said Wednesday during a phone interview. “We can only hope that the remainder of the industry will take notice and follow suit.”

 

Among plaintiffs in the pending lawsuits are brothers Darren and David Clark, both contract welders from Mooresville, N.C.

 

The Clark brothers’ lawsuit, among other things, claims International Paper recklessly ignited the boiler when it was filled with combustible gas.

 

International Paper spokeswoman Amy Sawyer said Wednesday that the company doesn’t discuss litigation and wouldn’t reveal the terms of the settlements. In addition to the criminal cases in federal court, a lawsuit is pending in Warren County Circuit Court.

 

Sawyer has said the company works “very hard to ensure the safety of everyone at our mill every day.”

 

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined IP $77,000 in the months following the explosion for two alleged violations. For one, OSHA said IP started the boiler without adequate steam.

 

The agency also said in its report that there were no written procedures to determine if enough odorant was being added to the natural gas supply line. The odor is a needed additive so workers know when the highly volatile gas is present.