Search for gas leaks in Seattle cut short before blast

Puget Sound Energy says electrical arcing caused by a fallen tree created holes in natural-gas pipes, leading to an explosion at a North Seattle house.

After a rare electrical problem blew four holes in natural-gas pipes in Seattle’s Pinehurst neighborhood on Sunday, Puget Sound Energy says, the agency went house to house in the neighborhood to check for more leaks. Its workers stopped at nightfall, without finding more.

Puget Sound Energy workers dig up a yard on Fifth Avenue Northeast near Northeast 158th Street in Seattle during an expanded search Tuesday. The utility told the owner there was a small gas leak and they needed to replace the damaged pipe.

It wasn’t until the next day, after a huge explosion and house fire, that PSE did a much larger “leak survey” across a 5-square-mile area, working into the night. Crews found four more leaks, but say at least three are unrelated.

With customers and Seattle residents rattled Tuesday, PSE defended its initial search. Sunday’s testing area — which stopped just blocks short of the explosion site — focused on areas with similar pipe, said Martha Monfried, PSE’s communications director.

She said it would not have been safe to continue the leak survey into the night. “You can’t do residential survey work in the dark, for both worker safety and for the comfort level of homeowners,” she said.

But Mark McDonald, a natural-gas expert who speaks about catastrophic leaks, said PSE should have gone farther.

“I would go at least 10 blocks in every direction to make sure we got all the leaks,” said McDonald, president of the New England Gas Association, an umbrella group of unionized utility workers. “Night, storm, whatever, you go farther than you need to be safe. It obviously was a mistake.”

Storm blamed for “arcing”

The source of the leaks, according to the utility, originated during a windstorm Sunday.

At about 11:30 a.m., a tree came in contact with one of the three overhead electrical distribution lines on Northeast 127th Street between 12th Avenue Northeast and 10th Avenue Northeast, said Seattle City Light spokesman Scott Thomsen. The incident tripped the breakers and the circuit quickly shut off.

“Our equipment’s role is to ground out that short, and the system operated the way it’s designed to operate,” said Thomsen.

According to PSE, the electrical current, conducted through the tree, energized a wrapped steel natural-gas pipe, causing a problem known as “arcing.” The current blew a series of BB- or finger-sized holes in the pipe, according to the utility.

On Tuesday, PSE said the supply pipe and gas meter found at the blast site showed a hole just inches outside the Ingham home, at 12312 Fifth Ave. N.E., about seven blocks from where the power tripped Sunday.

A charred pile of rubble is about all that remained Tuesday in Seattle's Pinehurst neighborhood after a natural-gas explosion leveled the house

The natural-gas service line to their home was pressurized at 45 pounds per square inch, according to PSE. It won’t be clear until an investigation is completed how the gas got into the home, but experts theorized that the gas could have leaked in through a foundation.

Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore confirmed that investigators determined there was an accumulation of gas inside the house. But it wasn’t clear if the buildup was from the leak outside the house or from a second leak that might have occurred inside, he said.

Two engineers from the state Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) are investigating Monday’s fire and explosion, as well as PSE’s response to Sunday’s gas leaks.

Dave Lykken, pipeline safety director for the commission, said the neighborhood’s natural-gas pipes are probably 1960s-vintage — with some new plastic pipe — and are considered safe.

UTC requires utilities to routinely check natural-gas pipelines for corrosion. PSE said it conducts neighborhood leak surveys every three years; it last checked the Pinehurst area in November 2008, said Andy Wappler, a PSE spokesman.

In the more exhaustive survey ordered after the explosion, PSE found four new leaks, but said at least three were unrelated and characterized them as small enough that they would be treated as scheduled — rather than emergency — repairs in a different situation. The other leak remains under investigation.

A third survey began Tuesday, and a fourth is planned.

SOURCE: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016332869_gasleak28m.html