All the explosions/fires in the Boston Area.......

[CathyA]

How bizarre is that? To have the explosions/fires spread out so far. I haven't heard yet how a gas problem could affect so many houses, so far apart. Really awful.
Sounds like it's an infrastructure problem. Too bad we can't find money to fix these basic problems. I guess they're too unimportant to worry about .

[bae]

My understanding is that the gas main itself was likely overpressurized, causing gas to be forced into the homes, then....BOOM.

[Yppej]

A coworker of mine is affected and staying with relatives. Columbia Gas is incompetent and the Governor has put a larger utility in charge of the situation.

[CathyA]

Why can’t people just do their jobs right??

[JaneV2.0]

I was wary of gas before the various pipeline explosions and individual fires. But with the earthquake potential here, and now this, I'm even more wary.

[jp1]

I was wary of gas before the various pipeline explosions and individual fires. But with the earthquake potential here, and now this, I'm even more wary.

Statistically speaking electricity is more dangerous, causing 51,000 residential fires every year and killing an average of 500. Gas leaks and explosions, on theother hand, kill an average of 17 people per year. While it’s true that everyone has electricity in their home and not everyone has natural gas, even adjusting for this wouldnt make up the difference.

[Yppej]

I wonder how many of the electrical fires are because people have old wiring or DIY things beyond their skill level, whereas the gas explosions here and previously (e.g., in NYC) seem to be the fault of the utility company. Today's news is that Columbia Gas was warned 3 days ahead of the explosions by a monitoring center and did not act or inform people.

[bae]

Most of the electrical fires I have seen here, residential or commercial, have been due to defective appliances plugged in. Wall wart chargers/power supplies are the devil, as is the Mr. Coffee coffeepot. The one major incident I was involved in where the structure wiring failed was because of a rodent eating through the wire.

My sample size is only about two dozen incidents, but data region-wide at least seems to be in the same direction.

[boss mare]

I had gas at my last place in Redmond . It was originally all electric. There was a gas explosion in Bellingham in 1999 . kinda made me nervous Then the Nisqually earthquake happened and I was in Hawaii at the time was really got freaked out.

[boss mare]

My DH is with CPFR and he sees more electrical fires the first cold snap. . BTW change of subject, there is occasionally some horse show organizations here in WA that require an EMT on the grounds during the show. My DH is looking to retire soon plus there have been times that he has been contacted last minute because the original EMT had to leave. If you are interested you can message me via here. as a side note .. there is a lot of single women in your age group at those shows. That is how I met my DH

[bae]

Thanks Boss Mare, that is a wonderful suggestion!