From: lfsheldon@gmail.com   
      
   [Sorry about the content-free fup.  Clumsy fingers]   
      
   On 5/15/2014 2:22 PM, Sancho Panza wrote:   
   > On 5/15/2014 9:05 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:   
   >> For those of you on Usenet so enamored of the safety record of pipelines   
   >> for transportation of oil, you may not want to read about last night's   
   >> disaster:   
      
   Unseen because of filter efficiency, but I wonder of we could ease up on   
   the fire-for-effect but otherwise pointless barbs in favor of something   
   like:   
      
   Today, in [place name] for the [nth] time in [recent history|the past   
   year|this year|since I can remember] a [pipeline|train|airplane]   
   {crashed|derailed|blew up] spilling [quantity rounded up for effect] of   
   [product] and killing [number of dead], injuring [number of people   
   treated], causing [value in US dollars] in damage; as compared to   
   incidents involving [competing modes] which killed [number] in the same   
   period.   
      
   >> A ruptured oil pipe near the suburb of Glendale has spilled about   
   >> 10,000 gallons of crude oil onto streets; initial reports had the spill   
   >> at 50,000 gallons. The leak from a 20 inch pipe was reported as 12:15   
   >> am. Thursay, May 15, 2014. It was shut off remotely within 10 minutes of   
   >> firemen arriving. Despite the shut off, the spill continued for at least   
   >> 45 minutes.   
      
   All the reports I can find say it was IN Glendale, of which Los Angeles   
   is a suburb.   
      
   >> A strip club had to be evacuated.   
      
   That is sure relevant.  How about the occupants of all the other   
   buildings around it?   
      
   >> The pipe was under pressure; oil was seen shooting 20 feet into the sky.   
   >>   
   >> The oil came from Bakersfield. It's a pumping transfer station sending   
   >> oil to a storage facility near Bakersfield.   
      
   Must be Southern Pacific--sending oil from Bakersfield to Bakersfield.   
   (That pipe used to be, I do believe, used for transferring oil FROM the   
   fields west of Bakersfield TO the refineries in El Segundo.   
      
   > Seeing as how no cause has yet been offered and the proximity of the   
   > rupture to the San Andreas Fault, seismic activity is not out of the   
   > question.   
      
   The San Andreas is 50 miles or so east of there, on the other side of   
   the Sierra Nevada.   
      
   I'm going to guess (in total ignorance, actually) that a weld failed.   
      
   I grew up not far from there and there might be a jinx of something.   
      
   In the late 1940s there was a Golden Eagle distributor in the curve of   
   San Fernando near Pacific with huge above-ground tanks (not as big   
   around as you usually see on a tank-farm but taller--like silos).  I   
   don't know if I ever knew what started it but there was a fire with   
   flaming gasoline running down the streets and down the storm drains to   
   the Los Angeles "river" not far away.   
      
   Somewhat later(I think) but near enough to the end of WW II that my   
   mother panicked that the Japs had bombed us a 36" gas pipe leading to   
   the old Gladding McBean pottery works blew out.  (Speculation was that   
   sparks from a passing SP train had ignited a developing leak.   
      
   Paralleling the gas line underground was a large water line, and above   
   it a high-voltage power line.   
      
   The result was a towering flame (100ft, maybe) with boiling water   
   falling out of it.  And it turns out the power line was down in it, but   
   the power wast not shut off, because.....   
      
   Chevy Chase Drive in those days operated as an above-ground storm drain   
   and the boiling water running towards the "river" had little electrical   
   sparks jumping out of it to the seam between the Portland concrete and   
   the asphalt concrete.   
   --   
   Idioten aangeboden. Gratis af te halen.   
   h/t Dagelijkse Standaard   
      
   --- SoupGate/W32 v1.03   
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