About blew up everything within a 1/2 mile radius.... no joke

[e30loverSC]

I work for a grading company for my summer job and today just another day on the job. We finished installing storm drain and started to cut out the road with a brand new d6 dozer. A gas line that has been a pain in the ass the whole job because it is in the way of the grade was clipped by the corner of the dozer blade and spewed gas for at least 45 mins. I killed the engine and told everyone to turn everything off and RUN!! Imagine gas blowing out with enough for to be heard for a long way. The line is about 5-6 hundred pounds or pressure. Lets just say it was a big scare. If your within 600 yrds of the leak you can expect 2500 degrees coming your way in case of a explosion. Just thought Id share.

[rares]

glad you are safe... cool story by the way

[mrsleeve]

found your self a medium pressure 4" plus main huh.


Been there on a few different occasions. Really there was little danger of an explosion out side of the very immediate area. Unless you get it into the sewer system and get it into the correct concentrations in the stagnate air there.

But you were right to shut the machine down. Not for risk of and explosion so much but to save the machine. The danger is that you will be sucking in enough NG to act as fuel for the diesel engine, and that will create a run away diesel. Have seen this happen on in old video tape form a hit on a 36" transmission line out in Southern ID form the early 80's

[zxert]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rustyduktape]

Mrsleeve are you in the NG industry?

[FKNFASTM5]

i was just in Spartanburg, nice place. Kinda.

[Massimo]

Fuck I am a Civil Designer so work in this line of work. They never stress enough how dangerous gas lines are. I have seen a few videos of gas lines exploding DO NOT WANT.

I have a funny story though, we had a contractor pegging out a site that was around a 66kv termination line, so he was specifically told to use wooden stakes. What dose he do use steel, anyways was banging one of the stakes in and on the second strike there was a massive bang the hammer flew up into the air and the guy got thrown about 10m. He survived, and had a LOL moment.

[e30e]

I dig around all things in the ground, was watching the Kinder Morgan guy search for a pipe line today while I was trenching in electrical line, its always my biggest fear hitting gas. Electrical doesn't really scare me as much, but if I hit fiber optic.....kiss my job good bye!

[mrsleeve]

Mrsleeve are you in the NG industry?

UMMMM Yeah you could say that, I build pipelines for a living, lol


I used to put in water and sewer main for a living, and had to dig around them all the time. Distribution lines dont bother me one bit, only about 70-100psi on them and they are plastic most of the time now a-days and there is lots of stretch and give in them if you do hook into one, fold it over with the hoe bucket as best you can and call the gas company and yeah you do clear the area but the chance of a blow up is nill at best.

Now I work on the welding inspection side of gas and oil/products High pressure steel lines. Been busy as hell in PA the last few years on Big inch (24" and 30" mostly) High pressure transmission lines, those are the ones that cause the big issues with explosions as they have anywhere from 1200-3000PSI working pressure on them. When you cross these ROW's there is company man there the entire time you are near it to make sure you are not fucking it up.


OP got tangled up in a medium pressure distribution line, I know just what happened too grade of the pipe came up right at the curb line and he clipped it right at that point, I have been in the very same place about 5 years ago with a 4" distribution line

The little plastic service lines for houses I have just folded over by hand and kinked off like a garden hose and wrapped duct tape around them till the gas company guys get there to repair them

[z31maniac]

Crazy, you guys should also look up high voltage arcs/explosions. Electricity does weird shit at medium voltage and up.

I write the manuals to keep the navy guys from blowing shit up/hurting themselves.

[mrsleeve]

Crazy, you guys should also look up high voltage arcs/explosions. Electricity does weird shit at medium voltage and up.

We pulled though a electric and gas in the same ditch gas on top that was miss marked and it made one hell of a weenie roaster for about 4 hours since the electric arced and lit the 6" gas main on fire. That was the only time I have really ever been scared at work and my buddy just walked up outta the hole where the initial fireball went not 30 seconds before we got it.

[Rustyduktape]

Nice, my dad works for a natural gas company. Been out to a couple of the sites (they've been retrofitting a bunch of pipes and meter stations), and that shit is crazy. I'm gonna try to work on a pipeline crew next summer, it'll be hard work but damn good money.

OP: glad nobody was hurt, that must have been pretty fucking scary.

[mrsleeve]

^

There is a SHIT LOAD OF WORK in PA right now. Most outfits cant fine enough hands to put all this shit in. Why wait till next summer, I can almost bet you could hire out with in a week if you really wanted to

[SoEm0]

Man I did something similar a few years back. I used to drive large "C" sections of steel next to power poles. We were driving a large one with a drop hammer (500lbs metal hammer) hoisted up the pole with a capstan hoist (not sure how to spell it). Anyways we hit a high pressure line running right next to the pole. The gas that came up stalled out our gas powered hoist. We ran and called it in. We then had to help evacuate half a block of houses. Shit was a little scary.

[Sailor37]

Glad you made it out alive...

You should go to church every sunday now, you are that lucky.