Recently we wrote about an incident in St. Louis where a steam-filled tank exploded and flew out of the building it was housed in only to land on a neighboring building and kill and injure people inside. Four people died as a result of the explosion, and now a report from the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board shows that the tank needed emergency repairs but was still being used.
The tank was used at the box factory during the process of making corrugated packaging products and had begun to leak in November of 2012. A contractor made emergency repairs but recommended replacing lower portions of the tank. According to the report those parts were never replaced.
On March 31st of this year engineers noticed a leak and the system was shut down. A technician was scheduled for Monday, April 3rd. That was the day of the explosion. The company had started the steam generation system even though the technician was supposed to come in later that day, and towards the end of the startup process the tank exploded. Investigators determined that a 6-inch ring had corroded and caused the failure, blowing away from the tank and launching it through the roof. The tank weighed almost 2,000 pounds and was about 425 feet in the air before crashing onto the neighboring building where three people were killed. An engineer at the box company was also killed.
The city of St. Louis is not subject to the Missouri law that requires routine inspections of the safety of boilers or industrial tanks by an inspector or insurance company. Instead, companies are supposed to have licensed stationary engineers on site when a tank is operating. There are critics of this system who say that a third-party inspection would be less biased than one coming from an employee of the company. Per city requirements a licensed engineer is mandated to be present when the tank is in operation. This company did have three such engineers, one of whom was killed in the explosion.
The Low-Lange Box Co. had violated safety regulations in the past, none of them were related to boiler problems and the company had addressed all of the concerns.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board cannot issue citations, but the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating as well. The board’s report also found that the company needed a permit from the city for the repair in 2012 but never sought to obtain one.
Read more from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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