The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Fire chief: 3 dead, 4 hurt when boiler explodes in St. Louis
An explosion launched a vansized boiler through the roof a St. Louis box company and slammed much of it down onto a laundry business across the street on Monday, killing three people and injuring four others, authorities said.
One person died in the blast about 8 a.m. at the LoyLange Box Co. and two others were killed when a large piece of the boiler crashed into the nearby Faultless Healthcare Linen building’s office area, Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said.
The explosion appears to have been an accident, but investigators were trying to pinpoint what caused the cast iron boiler — estimated to weigh a ton to a ton and a half — to explode, Jenkerson said. The blast occurred in a largely industrial area of south St. Louis.
Two injured victims were in critical condition, and one was undergoing surgery, Jenkerson said. The injured include a linen company worker who was found pinned beneath the boiler, which Jenkerson said was roughly 4 feet in diameter and 10 feet long (1.2 meters in diameter and 3 meters long). The boiler was used to produce steam to power the box company’s equipment.
The boiler was still hot when rescuers arrived, the fire chief said, noting that the equipment traveled up to 500 feet (150 meters).
Though none of the victims’ names has been released, Faultless Healthcare Linen’s chief operating officer, Mark Spence, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the three victims there were new hires who were filling out paperwork when the boiler came crashing down on them, killing two and injuring the third.
“It’s emotionally overwhelming just to think what these poor people experienced,” Spence said.
A third building was damaged when a piece of pipe — about 8 feet (2.5 meters) long — linked to the explosion went through its roof, Jenkerson said. Other debris was found on the street.
Investigators will seek out and review the boiler’s inspection and maintenance records, though “it appears just to be a commercial accident,” Jenkerson said. Investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration were on the scene.
It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was working on the boiler at the time of the blast.
The phone rang unanswered at Loy-Lange Box Co., and an email message from The Associated Press to the company wasn’t returned. The company is described on its website as a “full-service corrugator and custom box manufacturer.”
OSHA’s online records show that Loy-Lange was cited last year for a “general requirement” arising from holes in floors that prevented proper cleaning. The company paid a $3,741 fine, half of what OSHA initially assessed. The company also paid a $6,566 fine in 2015, and a $2,450 fine the year before that for what OSHA classified as “serious” violations.
In 2014, the company paid $2,450 of an initial $3,500 fine for improper energy control procedures, such as failing to properly train employees to ensure machinery was turned off and powered down and for not conducting annual energy control inspections. OSHA spokesman Scott Allen couldn’t say if that violation had anything to do with the boiler.