Pipeline explosion sends flames '700 feet' into sky

By Brian M. Boyce
The Tribune-Star

NYESVILLE May 06, 2009 08:25 am

— The sleepy little town of Rockville got a rude awakening Tuesday afternoon, and all David Crowder was trying to do was find some mushrooms.
“We heard like a jet engine running and then a big boom, and we saw the smoke rising,” Crowder, 14, said standing in the front yard of his home at Nyesville and Lenmore roads about 6 p.m. Emergency vehicles lined the road, blocking traffic after residents within a one-mile radius of the explosion had been evacuated.
Crowder was hunting mushrooms in the woods there about 4:30 p.m. when a natural gas pipeline ruptured near Nyesville Road and Parke County Road 100N about 24 miles north of Terre Haute.
Parke County Sheriff Mike Eslinger said the flames erupting from the line reached as high as 700 feet into the air and were visible for miles.
“I never saw anything like it,” he said, describing the roar as that of “10 jet engines.”
Eslinger said deputies began receiving 911 calls about 4:30 p.m.
Hina Patel, owner of the Billie Creek Village Inn, was one of the callers.
The inn is on the south side of U.S. 36, and Nyesville Road winds northward perpendicular from it. Although the explosion occurred several miles north, the noise alarmed the family.
“We thought a plane crashed,” said her daughter, Krinjal Patel, 6.
Krinjal, her 8-year-old sister, Simran, and their father went to the scene and took pictures before emergency officials evacuated the area.
“It was a big fire,” Simran said.
Hina was glad to learn that no one was hurt in the explosion, as was Eslinger.
“We were just real lucky that we didn’t have any damage to the houses or any people,” he said about 7 p.m., back at the Parke County jail. The only two houses near the explosion site were about 100 yards and a quarter-mile away, respectively, he said, adding that no one was working near that area.
Stephen Dodson, 18, and three friends drove up to Nyesville and Lenmore roads about 6:30 p.m. to see if the road was still blocked.
“It was crazy,” Dodson said. “We could see the flames from there,” he said, describing a gravel road several miles south of U.S. 36.
The Rockville High School junior guessed the smoke reached at least 400 feet into the air, and the fire was seen about 50 feet above the tree line.
Eslinger said the pipeline is owned by Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co. and workers were dispatched immediately to shut off the gas from Montezuma to Hollandsburg.
“Almost immediately you could see the flames start to go down,” he said.
The roads surrounding the one-mile radius were still blocked at 7 p.m. and Eslinger guessed they’d be reopened sometime later last night. “We don’t know about back flow or leakage,” he said, adding that a few fires erupted in the woods nearby, but that they had been contained.
Reta Roach, who lives in Rockville, was driving home from her job in Crawfordsville when she noticed first smoke, and then flames, as she got closer to home.
“After I got on U.S. 231, I could see a blur of smoke and I figured something was going on,” she said.
Once she was driving west along U.S. 36, “I could see flames shooting above the trees” near Nyesville, she said. “I was worried because our church is there.” She also was worried about the possibility of people being hurt, although she later learned that did not happen.
The flames “were just huge,” she said. “It was very scary.”
Roach was supposed to attend a women’s meeting at Nyesville Full Gospel Fellowship, but the roads were barricaded. She said afterward that she didn’t believe the church had been damaged.
Eslinger said he had no idea how much gas was released in the explosion and before the line was capped, but said the pipeline was 36 inches in diameter.
“We don’t know what happened yet,” he said in reference to the eruption’s catalyst. Work on another section of the pipeline had been under way in the vicinity, but Eslinger said officials didn’t believe that to have been the cause.
After the explosion, flames were clearly visible at least 15 miles away, according to a pilot who was flying near the Brown Flying School in North Terre Haute.
Elliot Abel, a flight instructor at the school, was practicing landings with another instructor when they noticed the blaze to the north.
“It was very large,” Abel said. “When you can see something like that from 15 miles away, it’s pretty big.”
Abel continued to practice landings for about 30 minutes and then he and the other instructor decided to fly north to take a closer look. They flew within a mile of the flames, which by then had dropped to around 150 feet in height, he said. Abel estimates the flames were around 300 feet in height when he first saw them.
Abel said emergency responders had roads blocked around the burning pipeline. No firefighters or others were visible within three-quarters of a mile from the flames, he said.
“They weren’t anywhere near it,” he said.
From his vantage point, Abel said there was a single home about a quarter of a mile from the flames. He could see fire in a wooded area about two or three miles northeast of Rockville.
Abel and the other flight instructor did two laps around the burning area, never getting closer than about a half-mile from the flames or lower than 1,400 feet from the ground, he said. Another aircraft from Rockville also was flying near the fire, he said.
There was a large black spot where the fire had burned trees and other plant life near the pipeline, Abel noted.
Eslinger praised the response from emergency departments throughout the region.
“The response we had from surrounding counties was tremendous,” he said, noting that agencies from each of the nearby counties were on-hand in short order.
Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. operates a 6,500-mile pipeline system with access to diverse supply sources, according to information provided on the company’s Web site.
A company spokesman, in a message late Tuesday, confirmed the pipeline rupture and said a team was dispatched to the scene from Houston. More is expected to be known today.

Reporters Arthur Foulkes and Sue Loughlin contributed to this story.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.

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