How One Mistake Along the 272,000 Mile Natural Gas Network Destroyed a complete Neighborhood [Explosion]

Fifteen acres of San Francisco suburbs were reduced to burnt rubble due to a glitch inside the massive US natural gas pipeline infrastructure. How did this happen, and perhaps more importantly, what exactly is occurring down there?

At the moment, authorities aren’t entirely certain what sparked the explosion-though San Francisco fire department chief Joanne Hayes-White, believes the rupture might need been the outcome of a plane crash .

But even before the overall answers are uncovered, the catastrophe, already declared a state of emergency, should prompt us to search downward at the large network of highly flammable (to claim the least) gas that courses across the continent. Traversing the united states like an interstate highway system is an intricate network of huge-diameter pipes. Step upon any given square mile of this network, and you’re standing on top of 4 million cubic feet of combustible gas. That’s enough to keep a stove lit for 40 years straight.

To keep the gas flowing and stoves burning, vast numbers of ” compressors” are employed to artificially shove gas during the pipes, creating pressures of up to at least one,500 pounds per square inch. In step with the yankee Gas Association, these pressure levels are maintained far less than the pipes are designed to contain-but at these pressure levels, if there’s a leak, gas will squirt out quickly.

And it sounds as if that’s just what happened, with local residents saying they smelled natural gas inside the air for days before the explosion, which has to this point killed four people, injured 52 more, and destroyed almost 50 buildings. Ignited leaked gas will have ruptured among the many pipelines, setting aflame a volume that, even at relatively-low residential pressures, continues to be thousands of pounds of explosive gas. Enough to destroy an enormous element of San Bruno.

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This post is tagged: francisco fire department, interstate highway system, pipeline infrastructure, pounds per square inch, san francisco fire department