We just had a major gas pipeline explosion less than 2 miles from our house here in NW Houston. Have you ever heard something that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? Wow! Inside 90 seconds we had our BOB in the truck and were out of the driveway. Took them about an hour to shut off the gas flow. Luckily the explosion was in the middle of an undeveloped area that's not been built up yet. More later...

Blacktop,

Sorry about that... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

-Blast

Yup. My dad and I both used to work for Standard Oil (now Chevron-Texaco). They had some 24 inch high pressure gas lines running thru the rural area we worked, and from time to time one would blow. Easily heard from well over five miles away, after the initial booming sound you would swear that a B-52, with all eight engines at full power, was sitting in your front yard. Scary stuff. We lost the occasional co-worker too...

Where is Blast, and just what has he been doing lately? He wasn't in Houston very recently, was he?
<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Sue

Here are some photos on the local news site: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=5044193#. It got me thinking - there's one of those pipelines adjacent to the entrance of my subdivision, probably a big one 36 or 48". Since the only two entrances to our neighborhood are fairly close to it, maybe I'd better investigate how to get out of the other side of the neighborhood and retreat along the bayou, in case we gotta evacuate.

It sounds to me that your preparations and contingency planning has just proven itself in a "live fire" exercise. You now have the time to see where improvements may be needed in both preps and contingency planning.
Once again, you never know what may appear but if you've prepared for the worst scenario, then things seem to fall in place, regardless.

In about 1982, we were driving the 60 miles back from Davenport, Iowa to our acreage east of Iowa City. It was about 8 p.m., and as soon as we left Davenport on I80, we saw a very bright white light on the horizon which grew larger and brighter as we approached our house. Turns out, a company truck had backed into a valve on a huge underground natural gas storage tank that was about 5 miles from our house, rupturing the valve and sparking the natural gas into a huge blowtorch flame that shot 100 feet into the air. There was nothing to do but let the whole thing burn itself out, which took about 6 very noisy weeks.

Hello,

Happily those explosions seem to have been on the right place & time (non populated area's etc.)

Don't think there's no risk in those gas explosions.
In Belgium there was an explosion on an industrial site.
If it happens near your work/place, it could be very dangerous

Remembering the Ghislenghien disaster
A year after 24 people were killed in a massive gas explosion at Ghislenghien, we talk with the police officer who spent 11 months in hospital recovering from serious burns injuries. Aaron Gray-Block reports.

follow link for full story:
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=48&story_id=22358

Maybe this story can help in adapting your disaster preparedness?

Greetings,
Tranx