We were having a new boiler installed, including reconfiguration of a lot of piping in the basement, so a lot of soldering. My wife came home from work while the job was in progress; she was immediately alarmed at the smell of natural gas in the house. I brushed it off, "it's just the MAPP gas they're using for soldering, it smells a little funny" (which is true). She insisted I go outside, get several deep breaths of clean air, then come back in and smell again. She was right - OBVIOUS gas smell in the air, when you came in with a fresh nose. I went downstairs and insisted - using strong language - that they stop soldering immediately until we could find the leak... which took about ten seconds. I found one of their guys had connected the gas line to the new boiler, but not even finger-tight, and turned on the supply without checking for leaks. It's a miracle we didn't have the fastest house in the tri-state area.
Seriously? If I were connecting a line with flammable shit in it, I would wrench that shit until I couldn't wrench it any further- which probably wouldn't be any tighter, since my arms are weak as fuck, but *still*
I came home to my apartment (located in the first floor of the building) opened the door from the hallway to the room that connects all of the apartments and immediately smelled large amount of natural gas. Turns out there was a leak in another apartment on the same level. Tenet was asleep and had no idea. emergency maintenance came and shut off the valve to his apartment. Pretty sure I saved his life that day just by getting off work a half hour early.
I’d go over to my aunt and uncle’s place, and in the basement would always be an odour of natural gas, and corresponding headache. Dozens of times I got a “haven’t found a leak, anyways smells like that”. Every visit “did y’all find that gas leak yet?” Never did. Finally when they moved out, they found the leaking hose.
Whenever I do anything even slightly dangerous now, I can hear the CSB narrator explaining what I'm doing that's careless and could lead to a catastrophe.
I've had to knock a guy down when he tried to use a lighter to check for a natural gas leak. I got some soap bubbles and did it safely. No one should ever have an ignition source near a hazardous gas source
Knock him down ! You just saved at least two lives. Believe it or not, up the street from us , at a lake house, a group of teens were having a party. But, there was a hornets nest that was bothering them. One of the owners sons decided to go up to the shop to get something to burn the nest. My fathers plane was in the shop for FAA repairs. At the tail end was a can of flammable licqued. He took some, but then couldn't find the cap. …...So he LIGHT A MATCH. Yes , realy, almost burnt the plane and the shop to the ground.
People get dumb AF when they get used to doing stupid stuff and don’t get hurt every time doing it. Yes a bic lighter is great for finding gas leaks if you have that lucky roll going. Just remember clean underwear everyday, tuck and roll when you catch on fire doing it.
@@charlestaylor7591 In most cases natural gas is more readily available, despite being more expensive than nitrogen, it saves time. In the age of "fast-tracked" construction, that is incredibly important. To those companies, that is.
@@amolloy02 USCSB Drinking game (not created by me) * A vapor cloud forms * Plant management doesn't follow safety procedures * A worker opens a valve they shouldn't have * Someone silences an alarm * A storage tank explodes * The one thing that could have prevented a problem was broken for years * A runaway exothermic reaction occurs * Someone notices the problem but does nothing
Our sense of smell can become temporally "numb" to scents. It is why perfume sample reps have a potential buyer sniff a small cup of coffee grounds prior to the next sample.
@@derekwall200 Look up olfactory fatigue. As the bodies smell sensors are triggered, they require time before they can be triggered again to the same effect. Over time, the sense of smell for a particular smell goes away. The same phenomenon can be seen with the eyes, where you can look at a negative image of something, then look at a white wall, you should see the real color image for a short time. As for coffee to "reset" olfactory fatigue, there is no significant evidence that this is true. The best way to reset your senses is to avoid stimuli for a period.
Worse is that they exposed themselves to the odor for 2 1/2 hours while venting a pipe that was only 120 ft. The pipe would have been completely vented of air long before their sense of smell was temporally "numbed". What would have been effected first was their "Common Sense".
First thing who the hell in there right mind would even purge a natural gas line inside a building anyways? Especially next to anything you know takes a Damn flame. Wow!
@@tterrag1987 It is a very common practice. People who do it are too lazy to shut off the gas, or hook up a hose, and the people who advocate doing it do not want to disrupt the service to the gas supply. A gas detector that works but my not be MSHA or OSHA approved, yet is still very effective only costs $26 now. $26?? An MSHA OSHA approved 4 gas detector only costs $300 now, and it is a 4 gas meter!!. THERE IS NO EXCUSE! $300, and it tests for natural gas LEL, oxygen, CO, and H2S ! I still blow natural gas, but I attach a hose and vent it FAR away from the building people or equipment. Air or nitrogen is pumped into the piping, and an LEL sniffer is at every entrance and by every hose coupling. And how many of the workers that do this practice are using beryllium copper non-sparking tools? Let's see, ONE beryllium copper adjustable wrench costs about $450, so try, ZERO, or maybe 1 in 800,000 workers is supplied with some of the proper safe tools, and maybe 1/3 of those workers with those tools are trained in using the proper tools. It is expected that Republicans are not going to give a damn about worker safety, but the great Obama was one of the worst Democrat pieces of shit to ever take office.
3:34 intermittently venting gas into the interior room....and THEN, attempting to light the burner. Back and forth for 2-1/2 hours! Sounds more like a suicide.
As a combustion professional that regularily works on natural gas and propane system start ups, I would say that it is more likely a lack of knowledge that cause inciedents like this. The majority of plant personal lack the skill set needed to identify the conditions that could cause explosions like the one described on this video. The key to reducing these type of inciedents is eductaion, education and more education!
how shit is the general level of education that workers don't know this is a stupid idea? Do people just leave their gas ovens and stoves on at home thinking its fine? I'm astounded this shit happens in "the greatest country on earth".
@@MrKristyon Go watch the CSB video about the propane gas explosion in Ghent, WV, and then consider that the intelligence and education levels of the workers there are about the same as the workers at this facility in North Carolina.
3:38 - You would think that someone that works around flammable gases would always be carrying a detector. Similar to how an electrician usually carries a quality-made non-contact voltage detector. Granted both the gas detector and voltage detector are not always reliable but it is better than flying by the seat of your pants.
@@DaddyBeanDaddyBean And here I thought you should use a lick test to check if there's no power. Seems just as safe as venting _flammable and explody gas_ indoors. There's also the shove-a-fork-in-socket test. (This is sarcasm, of course)
@@Olivia-W My comment was also intended to be mildly sarcastic, and would probably make more sense if "Anonymous Anonymous" 's comment (which I was apparently replying to) was still here.
@@DaddyBeanDaddyBean I figured. Just continuing the train of sarcasm. I'm sometimes baffled by how some people approach potentially dangerous situations.
One thing I have learned from these tragic videos is that various industries regularly release chemicals and gases without recording the pollution event.
Seriously, ESPECIALLY Given the Global Warming Potential / CO2 Equivalent of Methane (The main component of Natural Gas, especially once processed) is 25 over 100 years (GWP100 = 25) but 86 over 20 years (GWP20 = 86). So even if the BURNED IT it would be better essentiaally.
@@regnbuetorsk I believe there are regulations requiring bilge water to be filtered and sterilized using UV light to prevent the introduction of invasive organisms. Whether those rules are followed, sort of like cruise ships dumping raw sewage and trash, is another question.
I’ve been binge watching these CSB videos for several days. The scariest part of all these videos to me is that I remember where I was living and working when the accidents happened and I never heard of most of them on the news. In other words, industrial accidents are not as rare as I thought. Stuff blows up and kills people at work a every year! Secondly, I’ve seen many videos where employees did not use gas detectors at the site. So I went where any layman would go to look for something. Amazon. I found flammable gas detectors as low as about $33 and the most expensive was about $133. I’m sure there are pro level detectors costing hundreds, but if the choose is a $33 gas detectors or using your nose or an open flame to check for vapors...come on! Finally, perhaps I’m naive but I can’t see why purging and gas blows can’t be done with dry air.
Dry air still contains over 20% oxygen. If you then pump flammable gas into that same pipe, you've basically created a bomb in a pipe (if only in a particular location and temporarily). The equipment that's being fed also may not be able to take an air/fuel mixture without damage. Safely purging the lines is possible, it's just that many companies won't take even a slightly more expensive option if they aren't required to. Even if it sacrifices safety. Workers could buy detectors to try to combat unsafe work conditions. But they shouldn't _have_ to. It should be provided _and mandated_ , and conditions should be safe to start with.
@@IstasPumaNevada 2 things. 1, clearing it with natural gas does the exact same thing, except more workers in the radius of extreme danger to check the pipe for leaks, so... no. 2. Anyone heard of nitrogen? You know... 80% of what we breathe?? It's out of convenience cause they already have natural gas lines on-site for furnaces/boilers or because the facility itself is a natural gas power plant
It seems insane to me that something so dangerous regularly gets handled so recklessly. If management doesn't care about the danger to employees, you'd think they'd at least want to avoid blowing up company facilities. It would be interesting to have an update from the CSB on whether things have improved since 2011.
Short Term Profits over Long Term Effects is honestly how this happens. "Oh implementing PPE and Engineering Controls would make my employees not get cancer and save us from a lawsuit 20 years from now? But it cost's soooooooooo muuuuuuuuuch to implement and makes the number go down!"
@@ericlotze7724 Do you think someday when the public and the workforce have finally had enough of being treated like canon fodder, we will stand up to business and industry and demand an end to harmful products and workplaces?
Its the macho-man phenomenon, where a bunch of id*ots think they know what they are doing and dont want to lose face, also dont want to look like a sissy complaining about things and or taking too much precaution because that makes them look like a baby. It super common here down south. They seriously would rather die than lose their sense of pride
Also the Global Warming Potential / CO2 Equivalent of Methane (The main component of Natural Gas, especially once processed) is 25 over 100 years (GWP100 = 25) but 86 over 20 years (GWP20 = 86). So even if the BURNED IT it would be better essentially.
_"Dangers of intentionally releasing natural gas into work areas"_ .... uhhh .... I know that humans are inept and that the CSB serves an exceptionally vital and important role in illustrating potential risks... but like... I don't need a slide-rule to see a problem there.
You don't, no. But when the employers say to do it a certain way, and your two choices are "do it how they say" or "quit" (since they wouldn't provide the means to do it in a safer way), and you need a job, and everyone says "ah we've been doing it this way for years and nothing has happened", I can see how it would be easy to just go along with it/assume it must be fine.
@@youkofoxy What if you have no other job prospects, and have the pressure of bills to pay and mouths to feed. Also lack of education on the risks, as well as Normalization of Deviance etc can make it so you don't even notice/care.
@@cliveramsbotty6077 Well yes, but the dumbest things I have personally done in my life resulted in, respectively, a badly sprained ankle and a broken light fixture. That's it. No explosions, no deaths, etc. On the bright side I do feel a little better about myself now.
A friend of mine from highschool was supposed to be working that day in Middletown CT. He would have lost his life had he gone to work, he was pretty freaked out about it. A few people he closely worked with died that day.
What amazes me is how these regulatory agencies have some *crazy* over the top life safety codes for certain things, and then you watch this and find out only ten or so years ago the NFPA never even had regulations to prevent the purging of flammable gases INSIDE OF A BUILDING?
Believe me, if there is a regulation talking about something crazy, somebody did it. one doesn't have to look further that a "Florida man" case to see that as true.
@@maxpeterson8616 That and some things are just assumed to be too stupid to need a rule, then someone proves they are in fact that stupid.. 5:55 seconds there 'we can't believe so many people are so stupid'
Spacewolf Jr. Ok now that was funny 😂 but do you at least vent that has outdoors into the atmosphere? Cause, I mean, that could be really dangerous like in an elevator, or something.....(would be pretty funny though)
In the case of an purging a water heater gas line it would work, but you'd need to add a vacuum port to the line. In the case of using a gas blow to physically remove debris, a vacuum pump, even a very large, expensive one, wouldn't work at all. HVAC vacuum pumps are also extremely slow. If you have a contractor getting paid more to finish a job early (which is pretty common) he's not going to sit and wait for a vacuum pump to pump down a line.
@@h8GW Its too long ago for me to remember what this video was about. I'm gonna guess welding on a gas tank? Its a lot more complicated than just "blowing the gas away".
@@kempiedempie670 I mean trump did cut back the EPA and put a *COAL BARON* in charge of it if i remember correctly, and OSHA has been severely underfunded for years. I don't know much about the CSB, but i'd imagine a similar story.
If you think about it, not only is the practice of gas blows incredibly dangerous, but it's also wasteful of the limited amount of natural gas available. Other methods such as air blows not only save natural gas for other, better uses, but they are of course MUCH safer than using flammable natural gas. Truly blows the mind that none of these companies or workers ever thought of using much safer and less wasteful air blows.
Haven’t worked with natural gas yet, but I’m willing to bet it’s about convenience. Air compressors take FOREVER to get a large amount pressurized. Doesn’t excuse these disasters, just probably why it was done with natural gas.
A slim-Jim manufacturing plant? God, I can just imagine those foul things being made from roadkill, the gum scraped off of movie theater seats, and old bicycle tires.
Yeah, one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard of. All that engineering education these “leaders” have and they come up with this incredibly stupid practice.
Hey, Garner NC resident here! That facility was flattened and left as a pile of rubble for a decade. However, there’s now an Amazon facility that was built over it.
well it was a gas line going to a water heater so it's going to need to have gas in it at some point if they ever want to light the water heater. that said there were faaar better ways of going about this, like using a vacuum pump to remove the air, isolating the pump, then opening the supply valve on the roof. that way there is no chance of venting natural gas into the room.
@@vikkimcdonough6153 That could potentially cause a mixture of air and fuel in the gas line, which could very easily cause an explosion itself during the purging process.
Enough gas to heat a home for 25 yrs to clear the lines wow I blow out copper when working on lp tanks but never inside also you have to blow down large lp tanks to replace valves this is either done at the home or if not safe we haul the tank out in the country and you never just Let it all out at once lots of thought is put into this practice each and every time so you go home at the end of the day
8:48 - Using large quantities of highly-flammable gas to blow debris out of pipes into the air sounds a lot more dangerous than installing filters to keep debris out of the turbines, especially when you consider that some of that debris is likely to generate sparks as it bangs around and scrapes along the walls of the pipe.
The extreme risks of using natural gas to purge pipes aside, I found it shocking just how wasteful it is! All that gas can power so many homes for years. It's like stupid times stupid, or stupid squared! These companies are all about profits, but they waste what they sell too.
It's horrible that a seemingly obvious dangers and risks took place and killed people. Yet these explosions still happen, and for what? Easier convenience? Companies that use stupid practices to purge pipes should be sued and fined out of existence.
Another nice option would be if a person could quit an unsafe job without worrying about going homeless or starving to death. But hey, not in the U.S. You're totally free (to choose either working for an employer who doesn't give a shit about you, or risk losing your home, your dinner, and your health care).
There is a law that states you can decline doing a particular job duty if you feel it is unsafe to complete. For Instance: I was required to wash my ambulance once a shift. If it was under a certain temperature outside, I did not. I also refused to wash the top, because I only had access to a ladder and the angle of the driveway made it feel unsafe. I wrote a detailed explanation as to why I did not wash my unit as laid out in my job description. If I had access to an indoor wash area with an elevated walkway, and it was free from potential ice, I would wash it completely. Otherwise, the practice I was given was unsafe. This is supposed to prevent a retaliatory termination, but....you know...someone will be happy to do the job you refuse. But written documentation will go a long way to protecting employees. BTW, being a paramedic had a tremendous risk involved, which was brought to my attention after filing this complaint. I said I was TRAINED to do my job as a paramedic. No one trained anyone to wash a truck in icy conditions with a leaning ladder. There is no “best practice” for that situation.
They built an Amazon facility directly overtop of where Conagra foods was. I work at the Amazon.. there is not a SINGLE memorial in that building. Nowhere. It’s disgusting of Amazon to not do that considering we work daily over top where people lost their lives.
If anyone is wondering why so many people die or are injured at work - this is why. Companies know that it's cheaper to be unsafe and pay a slap on the wrist once in a while, than to be safe. Nothing will change until we start not only shutting down companies that do this but also hold their executives responsible for their illegal behavior.
Years ago I worked in a large name brand Vegetable canning company in NWA Arkansas... One day there was a Natural Gas leak inside the processing plant.... It was STRONG... But they said ITS FINE keep WORKING.... It was so bad I was LITTERLY feeling ill from it. But we just kept on working... Nothing happned thank god!! I was so happy later to get outside to breath fresh air.
A heating installer connected my new furnace and apparently never checked for leaks. He turned the gas back on and went home. I went down in the basement to checkout his work and smelled gas. I immediately turned off the shutoff valve near the furnace. I had a standing pilot water heater right next to it too. He wouldn’t come back to fix it right away. He was leaving for vacation. He just asked if I turned the gas off. He eventually came back and took out that cheap yellow flexible crap and installed hard pipe. He did check that for leaks. Very scary!
Two things come to mind. 1) Is Circus monkey Syndrome. In other words, "That's how we've always done it", ( but nobody can ever explain why). 2) I couldn't remember how to dial 911!. That actually does occur and it is very common in a traumatic incident. Take some time and practice doing just that. Disconnect a landline (or other) and practice dialing 911. Do it 100 times. Do it often (it takes 10,000 repetitions for something to really become muscle memory) Make it muscle memory (over time). In a time like this, your fine motor skills go out the window. It's why the military train so extensively in the skillful operation of firearms including reloading , stoppage drills, etc.. Combat is a very stressful action and your fine motor skills will go out the window. You will drop to the level of your training. Train to fight another day. In my experience, there is exactly no difference between an incident such as this and combat. The mind works the same way in both situations.
This is very good advice, and you've explained it well. Apparently it also works for getting up in the morning. When you're awake, Practice getting out of bed on the first alarm and starting your routine, and you'll default to those actions when you're still hazy from sleep. Cannot personally confirm if this works, as I keep forgetting to practice. 😑🍍
If a company developed a cost effective method to capture the gas at the outlet, they would make some really good money and save lots of lives and painful injuries.
Why are they using natural gas in the first place? Isn't CO2 or Nitrogen or Air cheaper? CO2 has the added bonus of smothering any possible fire, though it can also kill people if it builds up in a particular area.
I forget what exactly was in this video (though I do recall watching a bunch of these videos, like the sugar explosion and the refinery fires), but presumably using the natgas wasn't the greatest idea after all.
Air is nearly as insane as natural gas. By putting air into the pipe with natural gas, assuming the concentrations are right, you risk making a pipe bomb.
The glaringly obvious faults with these recklessly negligent working practices are that they are so dangerous that it utterly beggars belief that any professional person would implement them, or be lawfully allowed to do so! That anyone thought it reasonable to actually carry out such ludicrously dangerous practices with such a highly explosive gas is really difficult to comprehend! How managers, inspectors and regulatory bodies allowed such practices is incomprehensible.
Wait wait wait...... You vented a gas line..... over 2 and 1/2 hours..... inside? There is no company problem, or policy problem, or regulation problem in this video. This is a "plain stupid" problem. No one vents a gas line for 2 1/2 hours indoors. No one does this. That is insane.
I can agree. It was going to a water heater... prob a half inch line. At most it would take 3 minutes to get from Point A to B. As a former HVAC tech, I would purge a line for no more than like a minute. Cap line and try to fire a furnace. 2 and a half hours?? Fvck sake!!! That was enough gas to heat a home for most of a winter!!!
@gerald carbonneau To me this boils down to personal responsibility. I have a stapler at my desk at work. There was no "Plant Safety" meeting over how to not staple my eye until I"m blind. It's basic knowledge of any responsible human being. Just like when I was in middle school, we had bunsen burners, and no one had to inform us to turn the gas off, if the flame went out. We knew, all of us, the dangers of leaving the gas valve open, when there was no flame. This is a grown man, in a professional position, doing work on a gas line, in an enclosed space. I have ZERO training in this, and I know better than to vent a gas line indoors for more than a minute or two at most.
Any flammable gas with odor can no longer be smelled if in high enough concentrations due to olfactory sensory overload. If you can smell but then no longer smell gas then step outside as your olfactory nerve has already been overloaded and the gas has already reached dangerous levels.
Purging gas indoors= WTF Purging gas indoors without a Gas Detector= You're just asking for death So true about how the mercaptan odor simply disappears after your nose gets used to it. One of the first things you're taught. To me, all of these purging accidents were caused by complacency.
One problem seems to crop up in these investigations. Could it be employers hire low paid low tier educated people to do occasionally critical tasks that result in disaster !? One does not need a high IQ for many factory jobs but common sense and problem solving skills ought to be basic requirement of job to reduce on the job disaster. Those with the skill, training and industry insight must step forward to protect those less capable of forseeing danger in company practices.
Management always wants undertrained people doing tasks like that. If they were qualified, the company would have to pay them like they were. Even if they do hazardous work routinely, the management won't pay for or even allow them time to get certified in those tasks. Because if they do, they'll ask for more money or leave; to managers' "thinking". They'd rather have their workers risk death or injury than that. Think about it.
And then you reinforce the use of gas detectors. And the next fatal accident will involve someone venting natural gas pipes with said monitor, but the levels staying below the danger threshold while building up to an explosive mixture in a corner of the building where the worker isn't measuring. People are in such a rush, distracted, tired, in such a routine, that there is no time to really comprehend the full dangerous extent of the situation that is happening right under their noses.
I think after 2.5 hours of purging, the whole building was filled!! Besides being a dumb thing to do, how long do they think it takes gas to move through a pipe?
I will still use a gas meter and use msa gas mask that the firefighters use and i am very happy to be a very good volunteer firefighter to learn about gases and diesel fuel levels as well
I can’t believe that this process isn’t just banned. If you can force that volume of natural gas through the pipes to blow debris out, can’t simple compressed air be used just as easily? As for the first one, a hose going from the purging pipe to the outside could have prevented the whole thing. I hope that water heater company faced lawsuits for doing something so reckless.
4:20 The building design was the worst choice. Most roofs and walls of chemical building are explosion proof since i'd say 1985 for this exact reason...
They already have a natural gas pipeline so both the piping, and the purchasing are taken care of. Nitrogen would require at least a fitting and a hose, as well as trucks for shipping in nitrogen. Profit over people at the end of the day.
Me: oh cool, what industrial catastrophe happened here? Narrator: ... a Slim Jim factory near Garner NC. Me who’s lived in Garner for 13 years: hol up...
Manager on duty using cheapest work practices: Don't worry about it, everything's fine. If you don't want the job we'll find someone else. *Plant explodes* Next manager on duty using second cheapest work practices: Don't worry about it, everything's fine. If you don't want the job we'll find someone else.
They vented a gas line indoors? For 2 1/2 hrs? its doesn't take 2 1/2 hrs to vent 120 ft of pressurized gas line of any diameter. Who in the hell thought this practice was OK? And why didn't common sense kick in? And why wasn't the plumber aware that not all gases have an odor, especially once you have been exposed to it for so long? I remember this accident and was told by the news that the incident was caused by a "pipe failure". I have never heard this version of this incident. (Another public failure!)
This is why we need at least some regulations. Left to their own devices, companies will trend towards cutting costs as much as possible. Alternatively, if people lived in a society where they could afford to quit their job without risking becoming homeless or starving, then they would have the easy option to simply not work for an unsafe company. But we don't, so employees are largely at the mercy of caring-as-little-as-possible employers.
In Canada, the Westray mine disaster was found to have been caused by safety violations so egregious that people were incensed that there were no criminal penalties. Criminal penalties were added to the health and safety regulations. This had the unintended consequence of employers being investigated for possible negligent homicides from workers dying of covid, but has had the intended effect of making employers spend money on safety to keep themselves from going to prison.
Where on earth are the SH&E managers at these facilities that use nat gas? It just seems to be common sense that gas blows are inherently dangerous. But that said I've worked at five manufacturing corporations in my career only two of which recognized safety as an overriding tenant.
Also worth noting that methane, a component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas. Even "safely" venting it outside is still polluting. Air or Nitrogen would be much better options from that perspective also.
@bobl78 They address that about 7 minutes in. However, they at the same time say that it is unreliable and it was stupid of the workers to rely on smell.
Yeah, I thought that was silly at first but them I remembered having such clogged sinuses, one day I visited a dairy farm in the milking shed and didn't smell a thing. So I can imagine how that might happen to somebody. And if you don't smell it, you really woulds think its not there. Because you expect to smell it.
When I hear purging of pipes, I think of a non-reactive gas. Nitrogen, usually. Why natural gas? I don't get it. It seems unnaturally dangerous. Someone explain?
I suspect because it's the easiest, fastest, cheapest way to do it. I.E. the people in charge of the business are more concerned with profit than safety.
So in the case of a setup like ConAgra, Why not pump the lines with a vacuum pump? This would remove the air so when the gas main is opened the only thing available to fill the void is gas. And as such when the valve to the burner at the point of use is turned on it should light right away.
I mean, really it's a small team of idiots at the top who refuse to spend any more time or money on safety than they are absolutely REQUIRED to (and can't get away with circumventing). Everyone else below them, including the people most likely to be killed by the decision, doesn't really have a say in the matter; they need to work or else they lose their jobs, and we don't have adequate social safety nets in this country to make that choice possible for many people.
Metal sparks are dangerously misunderstood and the CSB should probably explain their dangers more. The sparks are not caused by friction, so you do not need high velocity impacts to create hot metal sparks. Oxidation, the reaction of a material with oxygen, is an exothermic reaction that creates a lot of heat. Fire is the most well known example of oxidation, because that's what fire is. If you shave or flake a bit of metal off a large piece of metal, that new flake has a lot of unoxidized surface that suddenly reacts exothermically and the smaller that flake is, the more surface heating to the volume capable of distributing that heat. Tiny pieces of metal instantly oxidizing instantly become red hot, surpassing the temperature many other things have to be heated to so they too can begin oxidation: their ignition point.
Amazing how professionals will do everyday what I wouldn't even give a second thought to trying once. Of course CT banned it, CT likes to ban lots of things, maybe one of the very few examples where it was appropriate but doesn't solve the problem of people not asking the question of "is this a good idea?" while on the job.
Seeing as some people don't seem to get the most basic physics, like a ball coming out of a curved tube will go straight because no force is acting on it any longer at the side, I'm not surprised that neither do they grasp that flammable + explosive + lots + inside = real big trouble.
I was on my way to work at St. Mary's Hospital on 7/7 in London, one of the trains that blew up was in the tunnel between me and the next stop. I was the duty SODP that morning. Lucky I was on the spot. I was directed to go to the gain with the ambulance staff. It was awful, the level of destruction and the injuries was bibilcal.
I cant believe people in these places are so damn lazy they dont even bother to connect a high pressure nitrogen supply or compressor to the line but instead do it like this even its obvious its equal to flushing with nitroglycerine or similar! It WILL explode sooner or later!
+John Pekkala --> Not saying it's right but I think in this case the only things being considered are time & cost. Nitrogen would have to be purchased and transported to the site and stored prior to use which increases cost. Then you have to disconnect the natural gas lines and hook up your compressor supplying the nitrogen. This increases the time and work involved.
perhaps the common practice hasn't yielded a common result of death. even if it were a cost issue, it seems like most cases could've just used longer hose and/or the atmospheric reader device.
To begin with, the layout of new gas piping is too risky and a design mistake. Basic design practices: 1. There should have a dedicated branch piping for N2 purging to be located at upstream near the mainline bock valve, ie. It won't cost much for an extra branch with 1" NB valve and blind flange. 2. All gas and dangerous chemicals should only be vented outdoor at safe location.
Could a natural gas blow be safe if the exhaust was run into a flare so that flammable gasses would be burned in a controlled manner that prevents dangerous buildups?
It's crazy Discharge gas indoors or large volume outdoor. The lines can be pushed with air with a double water seperator, then purges should be vented in a stack, purging air can vent far away
I can't believe that use of natural gas to purge pipes has ever been industry practice. It's completely insane. In our Chemistry lab we always use Nitrogen or Argon, even compressed air would be far safer here. This is like using liquid explosives to clean your kitchen countertop, it makes no sense to me at all.
You have to arrange a huge compressor on the contractors expenses, while gas is present for free and already connected. Money makes the world go round... 🤑🤑
Uhhhh, if you're in a gas fired power plant and you're worried about debris getting from the natural gas line into the turbine you've got waaaaay bigger problems than debris in your gas line....
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
This man said “Slim Jim” in the most professional way I’ve ever heard
Now I wished Randy "The Macho Man" Savage narrated these videos.
@@herzglass Oh Yea!!!!!!
Long boi gang!!
Slender James
@@day2daydoneright beat me to it just 14 hours ago on a 1yr old comment. Wtf
We were having a new boiler installed, including reconfiguration of a lot of piping in the basement, so a lot of soldering. My wife came home from work while the job was in progress; she was immediately alarmed at the smell of natural gas in the house. I brushed it off, "it's just the MAPP gas they're using for soldering, it smells a little funny" (which is true). She insisted I go outside, get several deep breaths of clean air, then come back in and smell again. She was right - OBVIOUS gas smell in the air, when you came in with a fresh nose. I went downstairs and insisted - using strong language - that they stop soldering immediately until we could find the leak... which took about ten seconds. I found one of their guys had connected the gas line to the new boiler, but not even finger-tight, and turned on the supply without checking for leaks. It's a miracle we didn't have the fastest house in the tri-state area.
Seriously? If I were connecting a line with flammable shit in it, I would wrench that shit until I couldn't wrench it any further- which probably wouldn't be any tighter, since my arms are weak as fuck, but *still*
I came home to my apartment (located in the first floor of the building) opened the door from the hallway to the room that connects all of the apartments and immediately smelled large amount of natural gas. Turns out there was a leak in another apartment on the same level. Tenet was asleep and had no idea. emergency maintenance came and shut off the valve to his apartment. Pretty sure I saved his life that day just by getting off work a half hour early.
@@technoturnovers7072 You can also strip the threads off those things by tightening them too much.
I’d go over to my aunt and uncle’s place, and in the basement would always be an odour of natural gas, and corresponding headache. Dozens of times I got a “haven’t found a leak, anyways smells like that”. Every visit “did y’all find that gas leak yet?” Never did. Finally when they moved out, they found the leaking hose.
Whenever I do anything even slightly dangerous now, I can hear the CSB narrator explaining what I'm doing that's careless and could lead to a catastrophe.
I've had to knock a guy down when he tried to use a lighter to check for a natural gas leak. I got some soap bubbles and did it safely.
No one should ever have an ignition source near a hazardous gas source
Nighthawke70 better kick his balls!
@@kristinerivera6637 never kick a man in the balls, wtf
Knock him down ! You just saved at least two lives. Believe it or not, up the street from us , at a lake house, a group of teens were having a party. But, there was a hornets nest that was bothering them. One of the owners sons decided to go up to the shop to get something to burn the nest. My fathers plane was in the shop for FAA repairs. At the tail end was a can of flammable licqued. He took some, but then couldn't find the cap. …...So he LIGHT A MATCH. Yes , realy, almost burnt the plane and the shop to the ground.
People get dumb AF when they get used to doing stupid stuff and don’t get hurt every time doing it. Yes a bic lighter is great for finding gas leaks if you have that lucky roll going. Just remember clean underwear everyday, tuck and roll when you catch on fire doing it.
In this situation you had the moral permission to do everything you want with that guy!
Aside from the OBVIOUS danger, that just seems like a serious waste of natural gas.
Exactly. They could use it to generate electricity to run the plant machinery!
I did like how they mentioned in passing how incredibly wasteful the practice is, in addition to its danger.
@@warnegoodman Why don't they just use nitrogen to blow out the debris
@@charlestaylor7591 In most cases natural gas is more readily available, despite being more expensive than nitrogen, it saves time. In the age of "fast-tracked" construction, that is incredibly important. To those companies, that is.
And also hurts the environment
How many of these videos have "Then an employee opened a valve" in them?
Sounds like a drinking game in the works :-D
@@amolloy02 USCSB Drinking game (not created by me)
* A vapor cloud forms
* Plant management doesn't follow safety procedures
* A worker opens a valve they shouldn't have
* Someone silences an alarm
* A storage tank explodes
* The one thing that could have prevented a problem was broken for years
* A runaway exothermic reaction occurs
* Someone notices the problem but does nothing
Unfortunate Son don't forget plant management not alerting authorities for over ten minutes.
It's the chemical safety equivalent of "then the driver took the wheel" in transportation accident reports.
Common errors produce 90% of all incidences. That is why we hear those sentences from safety experts over and over again.
Our sense of smell can become temporally "numb" to scents. It is why perfume sample reps have a potential buyer sniff a small cup of coffee grounds prior to the next sample.
really?
@@derekwall200 Look up olfactory fatigue. As the bodies smell sensors are triggered, they require time before they can be triggered again to the same effect. Over time, the sense of smell for a particular smell goes away. The same phenomenon can be seen with the eyes, where you can look at a negative image of something, then look at a white wall, you should see the real color image for a short time.
As for coffee to "reset" olfactory fatigue, there is no significant evidence that this is true. The best way to reset your senses is to avoid stimuli for a period.
Makes you scared that these workers were "used" to these smells
Worse is that they exposed themselves to the odor for 2 1/2 hours while venting a pipe that was only 120 ft. The pipe would have been completely vented of air long before their sense of smell was temporally "numbed". What would have been effected first was their "Common Sense".
there are also some people that dont smell them at all. There are also people who can't smell skunks, and other strange things.
First thing who the hell in there right mind would even purge a natural gas line inside a building anyways? Especially next to anything you know takes a Damn flame. Wow!
And shit like this is why the world thinks Americans are dumb
@@tterrag1987 It is a very common practice. People who do it are too lazy to shut off the gas, or hook up a hose, and the people who advocate doing it do not want to disrupt the service to the gas supply. A gas detector that works but my not be MSHA or OSHA approved, yet is still very effective only costs $26 now. $26?? An MSHA OSHA approved 4 gas detector only costs $300 now, and it is a 4 gas meter!!. THERE IS NO EXCUSE! $300, and it tests for natural gas LEL, oxygen, CO, and H2S ! I still blow natural gas, but I attach a hose and vent it FAR away from the building people or equipment. Air or nitrogen is pumped into the piping, and an LEL sniffer is at every entrance and by every hose coupling. And how many of the workers that do this practice are using beryllium copper non-sparking tools? Let's see, ONE beryllium copper adjustable wrench costs about $450, so try, ZERO, or maybe 1 in 800,000 workers is supplied with some of the proper safe tools, and maybe 1/3 of those workers with those tools are trained in using the proper tools. It is expected that Republicans are not going to give a damn about worker safety, but the great Obama was one of the worst Democrat pieces of shit to ever take office.
hilham 89 me
sara who gives a fuck what the world thinks? fuck you bitch
Wow taking shortcuts really blew up in his face.....
3:34 intermittently venting gas into the interior room....and THEN, attempting to light the burner.
Back and forth for 2-1/2 hours! Sounds more like a suicide.
@John I know right. Seems like most people want to blame capitalism or greed when its mostly just morons.
@@Jimmy_CV Capitalism and greed scraped the bottom of the barrel for labor when competent people were passed over for being too expensive.
@@phillip_mcguinness7025 right because no industry disasters were ever caused by commies right?
@@Jimmy_CV In that case, competent people were passed over in favor of family members.
As a combustion professional that regularily works on natural gas and propane system start ups, I would say that it is more likely a lack of knowledge that cause inciedents like this. The majority of plant personal lack the skill set needed to identify the conditions that could cause explosions like the one described on this video. The key to reducing these type of inciedents is eductaion, education and more education!
Educating workers costs money they would rather put towards shareholder profits
lack of education more likely
Yea, then you'll just end up educating them beyond their (limited) intelligence.
how shit is the general level of education that workers don't know this is a stupid idea? Do people just leave their gas ovens and stoves on at home thinking its fine? I'm astounded this shit happens in "the greatest country on earth".
@@MrKristyon Go watch the CSB video about the propane gas explosion in Ghent, WV, and then consider that the intelligence and education levels of the workers there are about the same as the workers at this facility in North Carolina.
3:38 - You would think that someone that works around flammable gases would always be carrying a detector. Similar to how an electrician usually carries a quality-made non-contact voltage detector. Granted both the gas detector and voltage detector are not always reliable but it is better than flying by the seat of your pants.
@Anonymous Anonymous don't use the smell test in place of a voltage detector either, for the same reason. ;-)
@@DaddyBeanDaddyBean And here I thought you should use a lick test to check if there's no power. Seems just as safe as venting _flammable and explody gas_ indoors.
There's also the shove-a-fork-in-socket test.
(This is sarcasm, of course)
@@Olivia-W My comment was also intended to be mildly sarcastic, and would probably make more sense if "Anonymous Anonymous" 's comment (which I was apparently replying to) was still here.
@@DaddyBeanDaddyBean I figured. Just continuing the train of sarcasm.
I'm sometimes baffled by how some people approach potentially dangerous situations.
More likebtesting the heat using your pants
One thing I have learned from these tragic videos is that various industries regularly release chemicals and gases without recording the pollution event.
Calm down, it's NAtUrAL
@@MrMitchellw16 Natural gas is so nAtuRaL, I heard it coud cUrE cOvId!
Seriously, ESPECIALLY Given the Global Warming Potential / CO2 Equivalent of Methane (The main component of Natural Gas, especially once processed) is 25 over 100 years (GWP100 = 25) but 86 over 20 years (GWP20 = 86).
So even if the BURNED IT it would be better essentiaally.
like bilge dumping...
@@regnbuetorsk I believe there are regulations requiring bilge water to be filtered and sterilized using UV light to prevent the introduction of invasive organisms. Whether those rules are followed, sort of like cruise ships dumping raw sewage and trash, is another question.
I’ve been binge watching these CSB videos for several days. The scariest part of all these videos to me is that I remember where I was living and working when the accidents happened and I never heard of most of them on the news. In other words, industrial accidents are not as rare as I thought. Stuff blows up and kills people at work a every year!
Secondly, I’ve seen many videos where employees did not use gas detectors at the site. So I went where any layman would go to look for something. Amazon. I found flammable gas detectors as low as about $33 and the most expensive was about $133. I’m sure there are pro level detectors costing hundreds, but if the choose is a $33 gas detectors or using your nose or an open flame to check for vapors...come on!
Finally, perhaps I’m naive but I can’t see why purging and gas blows can’t be done with dry air.
Dry air still contains over 20% oxygen. If you then pump flammable gas into that same pipe, you've basically created a bomb in a pipe (if only in a particular location and temporarily). The equipment that's being fed also may not be able to take an air/fuel mixture without damage.
Safely purging the lines is possible, it's just that many companies won't take even a slightly more expensive option if they aren't required to. Even if it sacrifices safety.
Workers could buy detectors to try to combat unsafe work conditions. But they shouldn't _have_ to. It should be provided _and mandated_ , and conditions should be safe to start with.
Exactly
.... no sense to this Mackey mouse sosht
Convenience and time saving is the reason, slightly behind cost saving
@@IstasPumaNevada 2 things. 1, clearing it with natural gas does the exact same thing, except more workers in the radius of extreme danger to check the pipe for leaks, so... no. 2. Anyone heard of nitrogen? You know... 80% of what we breathe?? It's out of convenience cause they already have natural gas lines on-site for furnaces/boilers or because the facility itself is a natural gas power plant
@@IstasPumaNevada How? Plz explain mr brain. How will u create an ingniteable mixture of LNG and Air in an pressurerized high-flow piping?
It seems insane to me that something so dangerous regularly gets handled so recklessly. If management doesn't care about the danger to employees, you'd think they'd at least want to avoid blowing up company facilities.
It would be interesting to have an update from the CSB on whether things have improved since 2011.
Short Term Profits over Long Term Effects is honestly how this happens.
"Oh implementing PPE and Engineering Controls would make my employees not get cancer and save us from a lawsuit 20 years from now? But it cost's soooooooooo muuuuuuuuuch to implement and makes the number go down!"
@@ericlotze7724 Do you think someday when the public and the workforce have finally had enough of being treated like canon fodder, we will stand up to business and industry and demand an end to harmful products and workplaces?
@@oneworldawakening When the US starts to see an uptick in unions again, definitely.
Its the macho-man phenomenon, where a bunch of id*ots think they know what they are doing and dont want to lose face, also dont want to look like a sissy complaining about things and or taking too much precaution because that makes them look like a baby. It super common here down south. They seriously would rather die than lose their sense of pride
Companies don't give AF about the little people making them all the money. Another child died this week at a chicken processing planet in Mississippi.
9:46 They released enough gas to fuel a home every day for more than 25 years
Also the Global Warming Potential / CO2 Equivalent of Methane (The main component of Natural Gas, especially once processed) is 25 over 100 years (GWP100 = 25) but 86 over 20 years (GWP20 = 86).
So even if the BURNED IT it would be better essentially.
_"Dangers of intentionally releasing natural gas into work areas"_ .... uhhh
.... I know that humans are inept and that the CSB serves an exceptionally vital and important role in illustrating potential risks... but like... I don't need a slide-rule to see a problem there.
You don't, no. But when the employers say to do it a certain way, and your two choices are "do it how they say" or "quit" (since they wouldn't provide the means to do it in a safer way), and you need a job, and everyone says "ah we've been doing it this way for years and nothing has happened", I can see how it would be easy to just go along with it/assume it must be fine.
@@IstasPumaNevada Well, in that scenario, I would say "I quit, better having to find a job that to run the risk of quitting life."
we all do silly shit sometimes, don't go thinking you're above it. that's how accidents happen.
@@youkofoxy What if you have no other job prospects, and have the pressure of bills to pay and mouths to feed. Also lack of education on the risks, as well as Normalization of Deviance etc can make it so you don't even notice/care.
@@cliveramsbotty6077 Well yes, but the dumbest things I have personally done in my life resulted in, respectively, a badly sprained ankle and a broken light fixture. That's it. No explosions, no deaths, etc. On the bright side I do feel a little better about myself now.
A friend of mine from highschool was supposed to be working that day in Middletown CT. He would have lost his life had he gone to work, he was pretty freaked out about it. A few people he closely worked with died that day.
What amazes me is how these regulatory agencies have some *crazy* over the top life safety codes for certain things, and then you watch this and find out only ten or so years ago the NFPA never even had regulations to prevent the purging of flammable gases INSIDE OF A BUILDING?
Believe me, if there is a regulation talking about something crazy, somebody did it.
one doesn't have to look further that a "Florida man" case to see that as true.
All safety regulations are written in blood.
@@maxpeterson8616 That and some things are just assumed to be too stupid to need a rule, then someone proves they are in fact that stupid.. 5:55 seconds there 'we can't believe so many people are so stupid'
@@74KU Yeah, it is possible to make procedures and processes foolproof, but it is not possible to make them DAMN-fool-proof. Sadly.
I usually release natural gas after eating slimjims
Spacewolf Jr. Please don't smoke... Just don't smoke.
Oh Jesus. I could melt paint off the walls with my SlimJim farts...... They were brutal.
Spacewolf Jr. Ok now that was funny 😂 but do you at least vent that has outdoors into the atmosphere? Cause, I mean, that could be really dangerous like in an elevator, or something.....(would be pretty funny though)
You usually have to clear the area when I do it.
Spacewolf Jr. un-natural
A portable vacuum pump isn't expensive. Like a few hundred dollars maybe.
Flushing a gas pipe like that is nuts.
It really is. These people were not properly trained.
In the case of an purging a water heater gas line it would work, but you'd need to add a vacuum port to the line.
In the case of using a gas blow to physically remove debris, a vacuum pump, even a very large, expensive one, wouldn't work at all.
HVAC vacuum pumps are also extremely slow. If you have a contractor getting paid more to finish a job early (which is pretty common) he's not going to sit and wait for a vacuum pump to pump down a line.
htomerif dont be surprised when they die then
@@htomerif Compressed air is cheap af, though. If the job is moisture oxygen sensitive, liquid nitrogen isn't much more expensive even.
@@h8GW Its too long ago for me to remember what this video was about. I'm gonna guess welding on a gas tank?
Its a lot more complicated than just "blowing the gas away".
The person who came up with gas blow technique should run for president in 2020
charron They may be over qualified!
no, USCSB would be out of work
Too late. Trump has already hired a lot of those people for the OSHA, and environment protection agency.
This comment aged very well
@@kempiedempie670 I mean trump did cut back the EPA and put a *COAL BARON* in charge of it if i remember correctly, and OSHA has been severely underfunded for years. I don't know much about the CSB, but i'd imagine a similar story.
I genuinely started tearing up hearing the mother talk about her son.
Maybe she should have taught her boy natural gas safety practices
If you think about it, not only is the practice of gas blows incredibly dangerous, but it's also wasteful of the limited amount of natural gas available. Other methods such as air blows not only save natural gas for other, better uses, but they are of course MUCH safer than using flammable natural gas. Truly blows the mind that none of these companies or workers ever thought of using much safer and less wasteful air blows.
Haven’t worked with natural gas yet, but I’m willing to bet it’s about convenience. Air compressors take FOREVER to get a large amount pressurized. Doesn’t excuse these disasters, just probably why it was done with natural gas.
I love these videos for 2 reasons
They are really interesting
And the narrator'svoice. Sounds super familiar
He sounds like the old narrator from Forensic Files
@@rockerfaerie2 Nah that was Peter Thomas, the actual narrator is Sheldon Smith if you read the end credits
Don't forget the hysterical comments..
And it makes me feel like a genius: "natural gas is not good indoors"
A slim-Jim manufacturing plant? God, I can just imagine those foul things being made from roadkill, the gum scraped off of movie theater seats, and old bicycle tires.
And, apparently, natural gas to add flavor.
There’s toilets on the roof for a direct ingredient source.
Basically overcooking a hot dog. Takes a lot of natural gas to do that much cooking.
Beaks, gizzards, testicles, penises, brains, and other leftover parts. "Snap into a Slim Jim!"
Shhh, that's a trade secret, keep it quiet.
Purging GAS indoors = Darwin Award.
That is why american citizens got all of them.
Yeah, real smart. Don't walk, run away from any place promoting indoor purging!
Yeah, one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard of. All that engineering education these “leaders” have and they come up with this incredibly stupid practice.
@@totallyfrozen This was probably just their cheapest idea- not the best.
@@Galfrid Literally run away- might save your life.
Hey, Garner NC resident here! That facility was flattened and left as a pile of rubble for a decade. However, there’s now an Amazon facility that was built over it.
Ah Appreciate the update
Ah so it's been replaced by a modern slavery facility.. Great
Purging lines with high pressure flammable gas = Darwin Award
Can’t believe that nobody said uhh this might not be such a good idea.
well it was a gas line going to a water heater so it's going to need to have gas in it at some point if they ever want to light the water heater. that said there were faaar better ways of going about this, like using a vacuum pump to remove the air, isolating the pump, then opening the supply valve on the roof. that way there is no chance of venting natural gas into the room.
Seriously. What in the French.
@@killman369547 Why not just open the water-heater gas valve and let the gas push the air out through the heater's burners?
@@vikkimcdonough6153 That could potentially cause a mixture of air and fuel in the gas line, which could very easily cause an explosion itself during the purging process.
What? He vented over 2 hours? That is insane. It is trivial to calculate how long you have to vent before no air is left.
Like in among us?
@@Klngmakeryou will be mentioned in one of these videos
Enough gas to heat a home for 25 yrs to clear the lines wow I blow out copper when working on lp tanks but never inside also you have to blow down large lp tanks to replace valves this is either done at the home or if not safe we haul the tank out in the country and you never just Let it all out at once lots of thought is put into this practice each and every time so you go home at the end of the day
8:48 - Using large quantities of highly-flammable gas to blow debris out of pipes into the air sounds a lot more dangerous than installing filters to keep debris out of the turbines, especially when you consider that some of that debris is likely to generate sparks as it bangs around and scrapes along the walls of the pipe.
@GsaUce Rug ...and when the gas comes _out_ of the pipes, as it has to in order to blow the debris into the ambient air?
The extreme risks of using natural gas to purge pipes aside, I found it shocking just how wasteful it is! All that gas can power so many homes for years. It's like stupid times stupid, or stupid squared! These companies are all about profits, but they waste what they sell too.
It's horrible that a seemingly obvious dangers and risks took place and killed people. Yet these explosions still happen, and for what? Easier convenience? Companies that use stupid practices to purge pipes should be sued and fined out of existence.
Yeah but our gov't representatives refuse to pursue companies who lobby aka pay them so rip capitalism.
Another nice option would be if a person could quit an unsafe job without worrying about going homeless or starving to death. But hey, not in the U.S. You're totally free (to choose either working for an employer who doesn't give a shit about you, or risk losing your home, your dinner, and your health care).
There is a law that states you can decline doing a particular job duty if you feel it is unsafe to complete.
For Instance: I was required to wash my ambulance once a shift. If it was under a certain temperature outside, I did not. I also refused to wash the top, because I only had access to a ladder and the angle of the driveway made it feel unsafe. I wrote a detailed explanation as to why I did not wash my unit as laid out in my job description. If I had access to an indoor wash area with an elevated walkway, and it was free from potential ice, I would wash it completely. Otherwise, the practice I was given was unsafe.
This is supposed to prevent a retaliatory termination, but....you know...someone will be happy to do the job you refuse. But written documentation will go a long way to protecting employees.
BTW, being a paramedic had a tremendous risk involved, which was brought to my attention after filing this complaint. I said I was TRAINED to do my job as a paramedic. No one trained anyone to wash a truck in icy conditions with a leaning ladder. There is no “best practice” for that situation.
Hysterical.
They built an Amazon facility directly overtop of where Conagra foods was. I work at the Amazon.. there is not a SINGLE memorial in that building. Nowhere. It’s disgusting of Amazon to not do that considering we work daily over top where people lost their lives.
second one they vented enough natural gas to power a house for 25 years to clean turbine pipes? that seems inefficient af wtf
If anyone is wondering why so many people die or are injured at work - this is why. Companies know that it's cheaper to be unsafe and pay a slap on the wrist once in a while, than to be safe.
Nothing will change until we start not only shutting down companies that do this but also hold their executives responsible for their illegal behavior.
Company: we’ll save money and time by blowing out debris with flammable gas
Company: *burns to the ground*
Company: *Pikachu face*
Workers safety is unnecessary and to costly! We need zero Working Safety Regulations. Most important is the profit of the companies!!!!!
How else will our American heroes, the CEOs and shareholders, create jobs??!!?
I like the part where the company sprays 25 years worth of gas into the air in a morning
Years ago I worked in a large name brand Vegetable canning company in NWA Arkansas... One day there was a Natural Gas leak inside the processing plant.... It was STRONG... But they said ITS FINE keep WORKING.... It was so bad I was LITTERLY feeling ill from it. But we just kept on working... Nothing happned thank god!! I was so happy later to get outside to breath fresh air.
People used to clean carpets with gasoline.
Kohdok and dry clean clothes with gasoline!
Nowadays Lysol injections and internal UV light is recommended by highest authority keeping you healthy!
No joke... 😎
And clothing. That's why they put the cleaners WAY away from everyone. In case it went up.
A heating installer connected my new furnace and apparently never checked for leaks. He turned the gas back on and went home. I went down in the basement to checkout his work and smelled gas. I immediately turned off the shutoff valve near the furnace. I had a standing pilot water heater right next to it too. He wouldn’t come back to fix it right away. He was leaving for vacation. He just asked if I turned the gas off. He eventually came back and took out that cheap yellow flexible crap and installed hard pipe. He did check that for leaks. Very scary!
Two things come to mind. 1) Is Circus monkey Syndrome. In other words, "That's how we've always done it", ( but nobody can ever explain why). 2) I couldn't remember how to dial 911!. That actually does occur and it is very common in a traumatic incident. Take some time and practice doing just that. Disconnect a landline (or other) and practice dialing 911. Do it 100 times. Do it often (it takes 10,000 repetitions for something to really become muscle memory) Make it muscle memory (over time). In a time like this, your fine motor skills go out the window. It's why the military train so extensively in the skillful operation of firearms including reloading , stoppage drills, etc.. Combat is a very stressful action and your fine motor skills will go out the window. You will drop to the level of your training. Train to fight another day. In my experience, there is exactly no difference between an incident such as this and combat. The mind works the same way in both situations.
This is very good advice, and you've explained it well.
Apparently it also works for getting up in the morning. When you're awake, Practice getting out of bed on the first alarm and starting your routine, and you'll default to those actions when you're still hazy from sleep.
Cannot personally confirm if this works, as I keep forgetting to practice. 😑🍍
These videos remind me of that one South Park episode where after a major accident companies make videos saying we’re sorry over and over again
that was BP, which actually has 2 separate explosion videos on this channel, there's a reason South Park targeted them
released enough gas to power a house for ever
why again?
for the lulz??
It's by far the cheapest method....until it's not.
Profit over People's Safety, and the Environment.
If a company developed a cost effective method to capture the gas at the outlet, they would make some really good money and save lots of lives and painful injuries.
Maybe some sort of metal cylinder that's closed to be airtight. Hold on, writing the patent office.
Why are they using natural gas in the first place? Isn't CO2 or Nitrogen or Air cheaper? CO2 has the added bonus of smothering any possible fire, though it can also kill people if it builds up in a particular area.
I forget what exactly was in this video (though I do recall watching a bunch of these videos, like the sugar explosion and the refinery fires), but presumably using the natgas wasn't the greatest idea after all.
Air is nearly as insane as natural gas. By putting air into the pipe with natural gas, assuming the concentrations are right, you risk making a pipe bomb.
You still have to get natural gas to the heater for it to work.
"Why are they using natural gas in the first place?"
Uhm.. watch the video dude... they fill the pipe with gas because... it's a gaspipe!
Yeah I don't see how co2 will help a water heater heat water
The glaringly obvious faults with these recklessly negligent working practices are that they are so dangerous that it utterly beggars belief that any professional person would implement them, or be lawfully allowed to do so!
That anyone thought it reasonable to actually carry out such ludicrously dangerous practices with such a highly explosive gas is really difficult to comprehend!
How managers, inspectors and regulatory bodies allowed such practices is incomprehensible.
That practice of releasing natural gas like that is just plain stupid.
Workers should have a gas detector on their belt monitoring things at all times with an alarm
Yes; companies that work with flammable gas should be required to provide their employees with these detectors, and require the employees to use them.
Wait wait wait...... You vented a gas line..... over 2 and 1/2 hours..... inside? There is no company problem, or policy problem, or regulation problem in this video. This is a "plain stupid" problem. No one vents a gas line for 2 1/2 hours indoors. No one does this. That is insane.
I can agree. It was going to a water heater... prob a half inch line. At most it would take 3 minutes to get from Point A to B. As a former HVAC tech, I would purge a line for no more than like a minute. Cap line and try to fire a furnace. 2 and a half hours?? Fvck sake!!! That was enough gas to heat a home for most of a winter!!!
@gerald carbonneau To me this boils down to personal responsibility. I have a stapler at my desk at work. There was no "Plant Safety" meeting over how to not staple my eye until I"m blind. It's basic knowledge of any responsible human being. Just like when I was in middle school, we had bunsen burners, and no one had to inform us to turn the gas off, if the flame went out. We knew, all of us, the dangers of leaving the gas valve open, when there was no flame. This is a grown man, in a professional position, doing work on a gas line, in an enclosed space. I have ZERO training in this, and I know better than to vent a gas line indoors for more than a minute or two at most.
My dad was set to start working here a week after this happened. Needless to say he did not start immediately.
One of my coworkers at Target knew someone who ran into the facility to help out those trapped in the fire. He was unfortunately never seen again.
Your coworker is likely full of shit...or you are. No one would have been allowed anywhere near that building.
Any flammable gas with odor can no longer be smelled if in high enough concentrations due to olfactory sensory overload. If you can smell but then no longer smell gas then step outside as your olfactory nerve has already been overloaded and the gas has already reached dangerous levels.
Purging gas indoors= WTF
Purging gas indoors without a Gas Detector= You're just asking for death
So true about how the mercaptan odor simply disappears after your nose gets used to it. One of the first things you're taught. To me, all of these purging accidents were caused by complacency.
One problem seems to crop up in these investigations.
Could it be employers hire low paid low tier educated people to do occasionally critical tasks that result in disaster !?
One does not need a high IQ for many factory jobs but common sense and problem solving skills ought to be basic requirement of job to reduce on the job disaster.
Those with the skill, training and industry insight must step forward to protect those less capable of forseeing danger in company practices.
paul dow where do u work
Management always wants undertrained people doing tasks like that. If they were qualified, the company would have to pay them like they were. Even if they do hazardous work routinely, the management won't pay for or even allow them time to get certified in those tasks. Because if they do, they'll ask for more money or leave; to managers' "thinking". They'd rather have their workers risk death or injury than that. Think about it.
Consider the labor pool this company has to work with down there in North Carolina....
And then you reinforce the use of gas detectors. And the next fatal accident will involve someone venting natural gas pipes with said monitor, but the levels staying below the danger threshold while building up to an explosive mixture in a corner of the building where the worker isn't measuring. People are in such a rush, distracted, tired, in such a routine, that there is no time to really comprehend the full dangerous extent of the situation that is happening right under their noses.
I want to know who in the world ever thought “yeah it’s fine to blow out debris from a pipe with a highly flammable gas”
What the French.
?????
Am I the only one binging these videos? I've come to really like learning about industrial accidents
They're very well made and superbly narrated. I could watch them talk about paint drying and be fascinated by it.
A multimillion dollar facility using medieval safety practices,relying on workers’ sense of smell! Likely corporate greed at the root of this.
When I eat a burrito I have a natural gas blow. Sometimes Debris is purged also.
Thats a grade B sphincter blow out
No more purging in the elevator. You keep creating combustible atmospheres.
I think after 2.5 hours of purging, the whole building was filled!! Besides being a dumb thing to do, how long do they think it takes gas to move through a pipe?
I wonder what the Pig cleaning device looks like...
+Kevin Broderick en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging Looks just like this.
@@SBRV427 thanks for the link. Wonder if the company New Pig, manufacturer of industrial/hazardous clean up products, is named after these?
It's probably a brush with soap on it, and a harness for keeping the pigs in place.
as always, safety procedures are always written in blood.
I will still use a gas meter and use msa gas mask that the firefighters use and i am very happy to be a very good volunteer firefighter to learn about gases and diesel fuel levels as well
I can’t believe that this process isn’t just banned. If you can force that volume of natural gas through the pipes to blow debris out, can’t simple compressed air be used just as easily?
As for the first one, a hose going from the purging pipe to the outside could have prevented the whole thing. I hope that water heater company faced lawsuits for doing something so reckless.
Yes, it can. They used natural gas because the supply was already connected to the pipe and they were too lazy to connect a compressor.
4:20 The building design was the worst choice. Most roofs and walls of chemical building are explosion proof since i'd say 1985 for this exact reason...
Temporary flare stacks would a good alternative to gas blows send all the gas to flare until pipes are clear
Ironic that only a decade ago natural gas was still considered “clean energy.”
Why would anyone doing gasblows with natural gas as apposed to less flammable gas?
They already have a natural gas pipeline so both the piping, and the purchasing are taken care of. Nitrogen would require at least a fitting and a hose, as well as trucks for shipping in nitrogen. Profit over people at the end of the day.
Me: oh cool, what industrial catastrophe happened here?
Narrator: ... a Slim Jim factory near Garner NC.
Me who’s lived in Garner for 13 years: hol up...
Manager on duty using cheapest work practices: Don't worry about it, everything's fine. If you don't want the job we'll find someone else.
*Plant explodes*
Next manager on duty using second cheapest work practices: Don't worry about it, everything's fine. If you don't want the job we'll find someone else.
They vented a gas line indoors? For 2 1/2 hrs? its doesn't take 2 1/2 hrs to vent 120 ft of pressurized gas line of any diameter. Who in the hell thought this practice was OK? And why didn't common sense kick in? And why wasn't the plumber aware that not all gases have an odor, especially once you have been exposed to it for so long? I remember this accident and was told by the news that the incident was caused by a "pipe failure". I have never heard this version of this incident. (Another public failure!)
It amazes yet saddens me to see how a company or employee is willing to cut corners and risk lives to make something quicker...
This is why we need at least some regulations. Left to their own devices, companies will trend towards cutting costs as much as possible.
Alternatively, if people lived in a society where they could afford to quit their job without risking becoming homeless or starving, then they would have the easy option to simply not work for an unsafe company. But we don't, so employees are largely at the mercy of caring-as-little-as-possible employers.
In Canada, the Westray mine disaster was found to have been caused by safety violations so egregious that people were incensed that there were no criminal penalties. Criminal penalties were added to the health and safety regulations. This had the unintended consequence of employers being investigated for possible negligent homicides from workers dying of covid, but has had the intended effect of making employers spend money on safety to keep themselves from going to prison.
Where on earth are the SH&E managers at these facilities that use nat gas? It just seems to be common sense that gas blows are inherently dangerous. But that said I've worked at five manufacturing corporations in my career only two of which recognized safety as an overriding tenant.
Also worth noting that methane, a component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas. Even "safely" venting it outside is still polluting. Air or Nitrogen would be much better options from that perspective also.
Hay guys we need to save natural resources! *Release 25 years of gas to the atmosphere* Your joking right? I mean come on.
@bobl78 They address that about 7 minutes in. However, they at the same time say that it is unreliable and it was stupid of the workers to rely on smell.
Yeah, I thought that was silly at first but them I remembered having such clogged sinuses, one day I visited a dairy farm in the milking shed and didn't smell a thing. So I can imagine how that might happen to somebody. And if you don't smell it, you really woulds think its not there. Because you expect to smell it.
When I hear purging of pipes, I think of a non-reactive gas. Nitrogen, usually. Why natural gas? I don't get it. It seems unnaturally dangerous.
Someone explain?
I suspect because it's the easiest, fastest, cheapest way to do it.
I.E. the people in charge of the business are more concerned with profit than safety.
So in the case of a setup like ConAgra, Why not pump the lines with a vacuum pump? This would remove the air so when the gas main is opened the only thing available to fill the void is gas. And as such when the valve to the burner at the point of use is turned on it should light right away.
I teared a bit when she spoke about her son. Its so sad it only takes 1 idiot to ruin everything.
I mean, really it's a small team of idiots at the top who refuse to spend any more time or money on safety than they are absolutely REQUIRED to (and can't get away with circumventing). Everyone else below them, including the people most likely to be killed by the decision, doesn't really have a say in the matter; they need to work or else they lose their jobs, and we don't have adequate social safety nets in this country to make that choice possible for many people.
Fairly stupid accident. Does it take hours to clear a pipe of air? Can you not smell the mercaptan in the nat gas?
Constantly monitoring saves lives. Know people who didn’t survive because of lack of monitoring.
Metal sparks are dangerously misunderstood and the CSB should probably explain their dangers more. The sparks are not caused by friction, so you do not need high velocity impacts to create hot metal sparks.
Oxidation, the reaction of a material with oxygen, is an exothermic reaction that creates a lot of heat. Fire is the most well known example of oxidation, because that's what fire is.
If you shave or flake a bit of metal off a large piece of metal, that new flake has a lot of unoxidized surface that suddenly reacts exothermically and the smaller that flake is, the more surface heating to the volume capable of distributing that heat. Tiny pieces of metal instantly oxidizing instantly become red hot, surpassing the temperature many other things have to be heated to so they too can begin oxidation: their ignition point.
Amazing how professionals will do everyday what I wouldn't even give a second thought to trying once.
Of course CT banned it, CT likes to ban lots of things, maybe one of the very few examples where it was appropriate but doesn't solve the problem of people not asking the question of "is this a good idea?" while on the job.
Seeing as some people don't seem to get the most basic physics, like a ball coming out of a curved tube will go straight because no force is acting on it any longer at the side, I'm not surprised that neither do they grasp that flammable + explosive + lots + inside = real big trouble.
I was on my way to work at St. Mary's Hospital on 7/7 in London, one of the trains that blew up was in the tunnel between me and the next stop. I was the duty SODP that morning. Lucky I was on the spot. I was directed to go to the gain with the ambulance staff. It was awful, the level of destruction and the injuries was bibilcal.
Once again, the stupidity of so-called "professional" workers is astounding.
MrPLC999 Hey man, you got any logic you need programmably controlled?
I cant believe people in these places are so damn lazy they dont even bother to connect a high pressure nitrogen supply or compressor to the line but instead do it like this even its obvious its equal to flushing with nitroglycerine or similar! It WILL explode sooner or later!
+John Pekkala Complacency... "Oh it's safe because I'm doing it without incide-*BOOM*"
Austin Lucas p
+John Pekkala --> Not saying it's right but I think in this case the only things being considered are time & cost. Nitrogen would have to be purchased and transported to the site and stored prior to use which increases cost. Then you have to disconnect the natural gas lines and hook up your compressor supplying the nitrogen. This increases the time and work involved.
It's not laziness, it's $.
perhaps the common practice hasn't yielded a common result of death. even if it were a cost issue, it seems like most cases could've just used longer hose and/or the atmospheric reader device.
To begin with, the layout of new gas piping is too risky and a design mistake. Basic design practices:
1. There should have a dedicated branch piping for N2 purging to be located at upstream near the mainline bock valve, ie. It won't cost much for an extra branch with 1" NB valve and blind flange.
2. All gas and dangerous chemicals should only be vented outdoor at safe location.
Have these companies ever heard of inert gases?
Could a natural gas blow be safe if the exhaust was run into a flare so that flammable gasses would be burned in a controlled manner that prevents dangerous buildups?
Wondering why an inert gas like argon or helium is not used to purge.
Watch them start using hydrogen because "it's in water"
As in HINDENBURG?
How can anyone think gas blows were safe,
It's crazy
Discharge gas indoors or large volume outdoor. The lines can be pushed with air with a double water seperator, then purges should be vented in a stack, purging air can vent far away
Wow...those guys are real specialists...
I can't believe that use of natural gas to purge pipes has ever been industry practice. It's completely insane. In our Chemistry lab we always use Nitrogen or Argon, even compressed air would be far safer here.
This is like using liquid explosives to clean your kitchen countertop, it makes no sense to me at all.
Surely it's cheaper to use compressed air?
You have to arrange a huge compressor on the contractors expenses, while gas is present for free and already connected.
Money makes the world go round... 🤑🤑
I love whoever does this narration
Uhhhh, if you're in a gas fired power plant and you're worried about debris getting from the natural gas line into the turbine you've got waaaaay bigger problems than debris in your gas line....