Aug 23, 2007 12:56 pm US/Central
Delivery Co. Cited Before Dallas Gas Explosions
DALLAS (AP) ―
The company that owned the gas truck that exploded and showered flaming debris onto a downtown Dallas highway last month was cited by federal regulators in 2005 for hazardous materials violations.
Bellville-based Western International Gas & Cylinders was delivering acetylene, a gas used in welding, to a supplier July 25 when a truck trailer exploded, severely burning two workers, causing more than $2.3 million in damage and sending plumes of smoke higher than some skyscrapers.
A 2005 safety audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, obtained by a local newspaper, cited Western International for transporting hazardous materials without a security plan. According to published reports the company was fined $6,050.
In a separate 2005 inspection, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Western International $2,145 for not having written procedures for maintaining its processing equipment to prevent explosions at its plant in Bellville, near Houston.
Western International spokesman Bob Schubert defended the company's safety record.
"I think it's great," he said.
The company has won safety awards for years from the Compressed Gas Association, the national trade group for the industrial and medical gas industry. The Compressed Gas Association awards the company with the lowest number of accidents per mile, not the fewest regulatory penalties.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has said it will be about a year before it details what factors led to the explosion.
Two workers at the Dallas explosion received second- and third-degree burns. One of the injured workers told investigators he thought the explosion started with a crack in a tank connection.
Dallas Fire-Rescue has said that either mechanical failure or human error caused the break in a cylinder and hook-up connection that allowed the acetylene to "self-ignite."
Less than three weeks later, a Western International trailer full of canisters burst into flames during a delivery in The Woodlands near Houston.
(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
