Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Residents back home after gas explosions
LAWRENCE, Mass. — Residents in communities north of Boston that were rocked by natural gas explosions were given the green light Sunday to return to their homes.
Gov. Charlie Baker and other officials announced the move at a morning news conference and said electricity was restored to nearly all affected homes and businesses in Lawrence, North Andover and Andover. Gas service will remain shut off while officials continue investigating what caused Thursday’s explosions and fires, and while crews inspect the gas lines and connections to homes.
The investigation into the Boston-area natural gas explosions is partially focused on pressure sensors that were connected to a gas line that was being taken out of service shortly before the blasts, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt said the sensors can signal for gas pressure to be increased if the pressure gets too low. He said investigators will try to determine whether those sensors played any role in the explosions and fires
Dozens of homes were destroyed or damaged, a teenager was killed and dozens of people were injured. Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate. Baker tweeted Sunday that police, firefighters and utility crews had “safely cleared” of gas thousands of homes. Crews have shut off nearly 8,600 gas meters in the area.
“It’s evident to me and to all of us the Merrimack Valley and the residents of our state are being as supportive as they can be and as kind as they can be to one another during this most difficult time,” Baker said at the news conference Sunday. “We still have a very long way to go but we’re very happy that people can return to their homes this morning.”
Schools in Lawrence will be closed today because of the natural gas situation, officials said.
The announcement Sunday follows the completion of what authorities are calling Phase 1 of the response to the explosions — clearing the homes of leaked gas and restoring power.
In the next phase, authorities will examine the damage to the gas system, and after that, they will inspect “every piece of equipment from the meter, where gas enters a building, to the equipment throughout a building that distributes gas to all the appliances,” Baker said on Twitter.
Sumwalt said the investigation is focused on high pressure in pipelines. On Saturday, he said officials will be looking at how local Columbia Gas officials responded to a “pressure increase” in the Lawrence area that was detected at the company’s pipeline control center in Columbus, Ohio, before the explosions and fires. He said there was no evidence the explosions were intentional.
Columbia Gas on Sunday turned away hundreds of Lawrence residents who wanted to make damage claims because it couldn’t handle the deluge, The Boston Globe reported. The company told residents, many of whom waited for several hours, to come back today.
“I am tired. I am frustrated,” Renata Rena, who waited in line with her 3-year-old daughter, told the newspaper.
Joe Hamrock, chief executive of Columbia Gas’ parent company, NiSource, said Sunday that the company was taking full responsibility for what happened and is implementing a service restoration plan. He said the devastation and tragedy caused by the explosions are heartbreaking.
“We’re in this for the long run,” Hamrock said. “We know this has damaged the confidence and trust in our company and what we do. Our full commitment is restoring that trust and that confidence.”
Officials said gas company technicians will turn all the meters back after safety inspections of the entire system are complete — a process expected to take several weeks. They warned residents not to turn the meters back on themselves, not to turn on gas appliances until service is restored and to call 911 and leave their homes if they smell gas.
The explosions killed Leonel Rondon, 18, while he sat in a car in the driveway of a home in Lawrence, authorities said. A chimney fell onto the car, they said, when the home on Chickering Road exploded.