Late in the evening of Monday, August 12, 2013, Jacob Tegeler of Morrison, IL, heard an explosion. He hurried outside to see this burning gas cloud outside of Erie, IL, and captured the menacing image on his smartphone.
A pipeline explosion displaced about 20 residents, stated the American Red Cross. No one was injured. By 6:00 a.m., however, most Erie residents were allowed to return home.
Below is an update from the Quad-City Times.
“…the hole created by the explosion was about 20 feet wide and 40 feet long,” wrote a Quad-City Times staffer on Wednesday, August 14. The pipeline is owned by Enterprise Products Partners, based in Houston, TX, and was built in 1973. “It was carrying a mixture of ethane and propane from Iowa City[, IA,] to a petrochemical plant in Morris[, IL].”
“Enterprise Products workers were able to remotely turn off a valve to limit the gas flow to the site, fire officials said.”
“Rick Rainey, a spokesman for the pipeline’s owner,…said the fuel did not spill, but it either vaporized or burned off.”