Apprentice lineman killed- Michigan

[Hemingray Insulators]

not far from me today, an apprentice lineman for Midwest electric Co-op was killed today when he hit a 24" high pressure gas line with a trencher. acording to the news report, it was a 24" high pressure line from texas to michigan. the 2 co workers were un injured. may god be with this mans family and co-workers.

heres the story:

Updated UNION (NEWS 3) – A man was killed Tuesday during an explosion along a natural gas pipeline in southern Cass County near the Indiana border.

Danny Young, 27, an apprentice lineman with Midwest Energy Cooperative, died after a trencher he was operating hit a high-pressure natural gas line in Union.

Young was working as part of a three-man crew. Others were not injured.

The explosion happened shortly before 10 a.m. near US-12 and Tharp Lake Road in Porter Township between Union and Edwardsburg.

The blast was reportedly felt as far away as Middlebury, Indiana.

As a safety precaution, police and fire officials evacuated residences and businesses within a half-mile radius of the explosion.

Watch News 3 and wwmt.com for further updates.
http://www.wwmt.com/engine.pl?station=wwmt&id=33229&template=breakout_local.html

[49pan]

My thoughts and prayers are with the faimly, I hit a gas line working in Texas last year, but I guess it was my day. We are here for a good time not a long time.Stay strong.

[Mike-E]

Thank you for posting this Hemi. All of our boys pray for him and his family.

[damn_encode]

Another needless death, I hope whoever is responsible answers for this.

[mscheuerer]

Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family through this difficult time. Please keep us up to date on this as more information arrives. Sounds like the prints or mark-outs (if any) were mis-informed. I would think a gas supply of this size and pressure would have well been within the guidelines of requiring such a pre-requisite before the trenching was to have begun.

[wudwlkr]

According to some of the newspapers in that area it appears that the co-op did file a locate request with the state one-call system and they are claiming that they in turn notified the pipeline owner. Does not appear that the pipeline though was located and marked. The pipeline that was struck was pressurized at 850 psi. The blast was reportedly heard over 8 miles away and until gas pressure was reduced was blowing earth and debris over 200 feet into the air. Fortunatly the gas never ignited. Created a crater over 25 feet deep and 80 to 100 feet long. The blast also uncovered a second 22" gas pipline that was buried about 15 feet from the first and rescuers had to wait for the pressure to be reduced in that line as well before they could go in to retrieve the body.

[BigClive]

Those things are just underground bombs! The pressure that was charged to is incredible given it's volume. It harks back to the days of steam boiler explosions.

[Orgnizdlbr]

Had an incident here in Jersy about 10 years ago where an operator hit a high pressure gas transmission pipe. He made it, unlike this brother, but the result was an apartment complex basically being burned to the ground.

Condolences for this brother's family and prayers for him.

[20x]

seems like something this dangerous should be buried deeper. They built a pipeline to a power plant here in FL. a few years ago, the whole thing is marked with permanent markers. Even the fence posts above it are painted to match the markers.

[graybeard]

I'm afraid this sort of accident will happen to often because we put more and more u/g in. Throw in all the live stuff and then the abanded, then make it worse with cut backs in manpower so locating is contracted out. Not to blame these poor guys but all they have to go by is mapping that probly hasn't been up dated very often. Went off the grew for awhile and did service work including locating. Went to do a locate for a contractor putting in fiber and their locater tried to tell me I didn't locate a primary but what he was on was tele. In Ia. you have to give 3 days notice before you dig and I've seen crews that had already done the work and left or were still on the job without waiting for locates to be done. No mater how this accident happened WE have to be on our toes and make sure we have our ducks in a row before we start any job.
My thoughts and prayers are with the family
This should not have happened

[Hemingray Insulators]

to graybeard, I know michgan requires ( or at least it used to) that the One-Call system be notified 3 days in advance, like where you are.

To the rest: I haven't heard anything else, other than what wudwlkr has stated, but here the links to the follow up stories, that i have found.
http://www2.southbendtribune.com/stories/2006/12/20/local.20061220-sbt-MARS-A1-Probe_of_blast.sto

http://www2.southbendtribune.com/stories/2006/12/21/local.20061221-sbt-MICH-A1-Quick_answers_not_li.sto

the second report state that all they know is that the operator (the guy killed) hit the pipeline with the trencher and it ruptured. they do not know if the line was marked, but the co-op did call for a locate, and miss dig requested the pipeline owner locate any lines in the area. thats all i could find about it.

[mscheuerer]

I am sure in the chain of events leading up to this unfortunate accident their will be some type of liability. That crew shoudn't have even started not knowing that the markout wasn't completed or not. I expect you'll hear negligence on both sides of the fence on this one. One for the markout service and one for the "OK" to proceed. I'd like to know the utility's procedure/stance on this one. We have to have both a written confirmation as well as a visual regardless if they find something or not. Then there is the verbal confirmation back to the call center to verify they were indeed out to take a look. There ARE indicators that are done in the field that are recognized and thus makes the liability factor that much stronger in the event of a mishap. Time will tell.