Huge explosion in Indianapolis destroys 2 homes, damages dozens more

Um, if you blow the f*ck out of a house, it would stand to reason that some gas supply lines got ripped loose in the blast. Whether the house blew up from a gas leak or a pile of TNT, there *WILL* be a gas leak now.

Maybe. There have been a lot of "mysterious" house explosions across the country lately. Nobody seems to know exactly why they happened. Gas leak is just a guess.

On 11/13/2012 3:51 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote: ...

...

Well, I think you're reading far more into it that is there. What are they supposed to say before they have had time to do anything but the most cursory of inspection? That's what's generally wrong w/ reporting--they expect answers immediately on things that are simply not doable immediately.

I think one can safely ignore essentially any press reporting on cause(s) at this point as they simply don't know for sure yet.

Again, let the forensics people do their thing in their own time--it may take some significant time if it isn't completely obvious at the git-go which apparently it isn't.

That there was apparently a furnace malfunction makes one suspicious at a minimum, however that it is pretty likely a culprit. Who know, maybe there was a pile of old unused fertilizer in the basement next to the furnace...

--

I sense that dpb hasn't seen the picture. With the houses exploded, the gas company isn't likely to know what's a new leak, or a previous leak.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Use a sniffer---the piping has to still be there. Of course, if it's a small leak and buried under the rubble there may not be enough concentration to have found it (yet).

I'm sure if folks will just calm down and let the forensics folks do their thing they'll find the root cause...

We can assign the same people who are investigatiing the deaths in Benghazi?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Maybe. There have been a lot of "mysterious" house explosions across the country lately. Nobody seems to know exactly why they happened. Gas leak is just a guess.

You must be thinking of propane.

Natural gas has a relative density range of .58 - .72. Air is considered to be 1.0.

Certainly a possibility--does sound like some circumstances may have been in play that might lead to foul play if those 'facts' are indeed factual.

"HeyBub" wrote in news:9NCdnR528- O_BT_NnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

No, it's not, and no, it doesn't. Natural gas is just slightly more than *half* as dense as air.

Nonsense.

That's legalese for "We are denying responsibility early." (-:

-- Bobby G.

Excellent point. With the gas turned off to the entire area, finding an existing leak would be pretty damn hard. These incidents are bad for the gas company because for the next year or so, anyone near that area getting the slightest whiff of the embedded odor will ride them mercilessly. Speaking of embedding, you've heard the joke about Broadwell being an embedded journalist (by Petraeus)?

(-:

-- Bobby G.

That was exactly my point. The statement made no sense...I found it hard to believe that they actually published it.

Something goes wrong whilst local/foreign terrorists are constructing a bomb? Gas leak from fraccing operation? Petrol store explosion due to "preparing for doom" believers having hundreds of gallons on site in dodgy containers. Leaking propane gas from similar.

There has been quite a few natural gas explosions in the UK have leveled buildings.

It doesn't take much gas to level a house.

At least in one of the paper's stories, the next sentence was reminder that the homeowner is responsible after the meter (g)

Not really. At that point the gas company was looking for leaks in the mains and laterals.. where they are responsible. The explosion likely wouldn't have damaged them.

Are you saying that they didn't shut down the gas lines feeding into the area surrounding the blast? That's pretty standard stuff and without gas flowing through the gas pipes in the neighborhood I don't see how they could have said there were no gas leaks. You can only locate leaks when the whole system is pressurized. I think Derby's right when he implies that the statement was way too early in the investigation to be credible.

-- Bobby G.

Not at all. They could (and will be able to) pressurize the lines in the area using plain old air or air mixed with the smelly agent or air mixed with a smoke agent and tell if there are leaks. They don't have to pressurize it with gas to check for leaks. YOu can tell just from the pressure responses. They might have had a couple of meters that they needed to cap off to keep the pressure up, but it isn't really rocket science to figure out if a main or the laterals were leaking.

The conclusion you put into their mouths above wasn't anything at all like what the actual quote was. They didn't say anything about any conclusion as to what caused it; only that there were no apparent leaks at that time.

The quote you posted again--"A local gas utility said an initial inspection found no gas leaks in the area."

It said they found no leaks in an initial inspection. That's fine and was undoubtedly so. Drawing any other conclusions beyond what it says is where the problem lies.

At the point when asked and after an "initial" inspection they didn't have a leak to point a finger at. Doesn't say there wasn't something prior; doesn't say anything at all about probable cause. Period.

It's making assumptions beyond that that doesn't make any sense.

--

Once again, I ask:

What was the point of even making/publishing that statement?

It's akin to the fireman stating - after all of the fires were put out

- "After an initial inspection, nothing was burning" or the electric utility stating "After an initial inspection, there was no sparking".

It was a pointless statement and served no purpose except to cause others to make assumptions about why it was said.