Natural Gas Explosion In Hood County Kills At Least 3

At approximately 2:40, Monday afternoon, June 7, 2010, a Hood County, Texas, natural gas facility exploded south of Granbury, near Pecan Plantation, killing three.

At least 10 people are missing. So far.

There was a loud explosion, with a rumbling noise, like a tornado.

A massive fireball and big plume of black smoke could be seen for miles.

Early reports are that workers hit an underground natural gas pipeline while digging.

Area residents reported continued thunder like rumbling after the initial explosion.

I do not know what natural gas company is responsible, but they are working to shut the gas flow to the damaged pipeline.

It may be late in the evening before the natural gas fire is controlled.

Firemen from 8 different fire departments have surrounded the site of the explosion. Parkland Hospital, in Dallas, is expecting burn victims to be brought to their specialist burn unit.

Something like this can happen, and yet there are people who can not understand why people like Steve Doeung and the others who live on Carter Avenue objected to Chesapeake Energy running a non-odorized, high pressure natural gas pipeline under their homes.

I heard nothing at my location, about 65 miles northeast of Granbury.

More details when I hear them.

Did Barnett Shale Drilling Lead To Burleson Woman's Fatal Accident?

On Tuesday, June 23, 2009, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that a Burleson woman, Megan Porter, 24, died at the scene of where her Chrysler Sebring ran head-on into a tractor trailer, about 5 miles south of Cleburne, on Farm Road 1434.

State troopers arrived at the wreck at 7:20 pm, Monday.

There was no mention made in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram regarding what the tractor trailer was hauling or why it was on a Farm Road.

Meanwhile, also on Tuesday, June 23, 2009, the Cleburne Times-Review reported that on Monday, the same day as the fatal wreck, Johnson County Commissioners voted to close County Road 426 to truck traffic. The closed section runs from County Road 317 to Farm-to Market Road 3136, in an area known as the Midway Community, where about 25 families live.

An area resident was quoted as saying, "We’re asking the commissioners to eliminate the gas-related water trucks from using the road as a cut through to the highway. It’s a danger to the residents; the road wasn’t built to handle that kind of traffic; and the damage is going to cause the county to spend more money to repair the road.”

Another area resident told the commissioners he had counted 36 trucks traveling the road from 7 - 8:30 a.m. Monday. The resident said, “Some were going the speed limit; some were not. I’ve been challenged by trucks several times. There’s no shoulder to speak of to pull off on.”

Another resident, living at the end of the road, said gas-well trucks use the road to access a well site and frequently back up onto his property to turn around.

There was no mention made in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article regarding gas-well truck danger leading to Johnson County road closures.

And there was no mention made in the Cleburne Times-Review article on road closures regarding the fatal head on collision between a truck and a car in Johnson County.

Strange.

Two More Earthquakes Hit Cleburne Texas

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I blogged about a 3rd earthquake shaking Cleburne, Texas, Monday morning, that I did not learn of til Tuesday.

Little did I know, even as I was typing the blogging about Monday's Cleburne quake, that quake #4 was shaking Cleburne with a 2.6 magnitude that shook at 5:16.

The 5:16 pm shaker prompted city officials to call an emergency meeting to hire a geologist to investigate the quakes and their possible cause being the fracturing of the Barnett Shale.

About an hour before the emergency meeting another quake struck at 6:19 pm at 2.1 magnitude.

The mayor of Cleburne, Ted Reynolds, said residents want to know if the earthquakes are related to natural gas drilling in town. I want to know if it is what is causing all the water leaks oozing out of the ground

Third Earthquake Strikes Cleburne As North Texas Continues To Tremble

Go here for the latest Cleburne Quakes.

The constant earthquaking here in North Texas has grown so common, I did not know til today that Cleburne was shaken, again, Monday morning, for the 3rd time in a week.

This time the earth moved at 8 am.

Monday morning's Cleburne quake was a 2.3 magnitude, making it less powerful than the previous two.

The latest quake struck about a mile west of Cleburne.

Today, the leak I told you about yesterday, was mostly under control. Today I asked one of the people working on one of the leaks why we are having so much leaking. She told me it's because the ground is moving. I asked, moving from all the earthquakes? She shrugged her shoulders, in a who knows type gesture.

Meanwhile, I think I'll start securing things as if I was still living in the northwest, in anticipation of the big one that may strike North Texas. This daily quaking reminds me way too much of the daily rumbles that led to the eruption of Mount St. Helens. I guess it is a very good thing that there are no mountains in the vicinity of the cracking Barnett Shale.

The Earth Quakes In Cleburne Again

Go here for the latest Cleburne Quakes.

We've had ourselves another earthquake here in previously earthquake-free North Texas. The latest quake struck the Cleburne area, again, for the second time within a week.

The epicenter for the latest shaker was around 11 miles southeast of Cleburne. The magnitude of the latest quake was 2.6 and relatively shallow at around 3.1 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake struck at 5:56 pm, Sunday. A couple dozen people have reported feeling the earth move.

I don't know how many earthquakes I have experienced, which indicates I have experienced a lot of them. What people don't know, who have not been through one, is that even though a 2.6 sounds like it must not be much of a quake, if you are near the epicenter, trust me, you know you're going through a seismic event.

The big quakes that make big news, the 7.0 magnitude quakes, those do damage over a large area and are felt over an extremely large area. I remember a 6.5 magnitude quake, the epicenter was southwest of Seattle. I was 60 miles north of Seattle. The ground where I was shook violently for about 30 seconds. The house felt like it was coming apart. I was in the house with my mom. We ran outside. Everything was moving.

Several years later I lived in the town of Mount Vernon. We went through a period of quakes, centered about 3 miles east of my house. The quakes were in the 2-3 magnitude range. I definitely felt those quakes. One time I was watching TV when one hit. Quakes are very noisy. My windows all popped as if something had hit them. The whole house moved. One of those quakes caused a crack all across my tiled kitchen floor. For another of those quakes I was laying on my waterbed. That bed turned violent and almost tossed me to the floor.

The 2-3 magnitude quakes that I experienced were very shallow, which helped to make them more noticeable. I don't remember how deep they were, to be able to compare them to these North Texas quakes. I'm guessing the Texas quakes are deeper, or people would be talking about popping windows and cracked floors and foundations.

Anyway, I'm hoping we are not heading towards a Big One here in North Texas, that all that fractured, formerly solid, Barnett Shale isn't heading towards some critical point where a massive geological event is triggered. In earthquake zones big buildings are designed with earthquakes in mind. The new Dallas Cowboy Stadium was designed before Texas started having earthquakes. I wonder how it would handle a 2.8 quake shaking the ground under it?

There was an earthquake during one of the last games in the now dead Kingdome that scared a lot of people. Ken Griffey Jr. signaled for his family to get out of there. I don't remember if the game was stopped or not. The cement arches that held up that dome made people nervous even before the Kingdome opened. I don't think I'd want to be in the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium to experience how well those roof arches hold up during a quake. I think Arlington has had 2 of this year's Texas quakes, if I'm remembering right.

North Texas Storms, Earthquakes, Sprouts & Insomnia

Go here for the latest Cleburne Quakes.

I have had myself a rough past 36 hours, give or take an hour or two. The night before, I had a bad insomnia bout after being chased by Jabba the Hut in a nightmare.

I was stuck inside most of yesterday, unable to swim, due to a shocked pool, unable to hike or bike, due to a big Thunderstorm dropping a lot of water.

Last night Jabba the Hut left me alone, but Mother Nature did not. There were way too many flashing lights and explosions during the night. And downpours. That got me worrying about those long-suffering creek dwellers in Haltom City. I've not heard from the chief of the creek dwellers today. That is unusual, so I'm concerned.

Yesterday at 3:06 in the afternoon we were hit with another earthquake here in North Texas, where earthquakes used to be extremely rare, til recently.

There have been thousands of holes drilled in the ground in North Texas in the past several years. These holes are drilled so this material called shale can be shattered by a process called fracking. Yes, basically solid rock, underneath us, is being shattered.

And now there are earthquakes. Which used to be very very rare here. It seems sort of intuitive that there might be a connection between shattering a layer of the earth and the earth quaking.

Yesterday's quake was a puny 2.8 magnitude on the Richter Scale. The quake was centered about a mile west of Cleburne. Cleburne is a town outside the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, about 30 miles south of my location, about 12 miles south of Kelly Clarkson's hometown of Burleson. Several people reported hearing a loud boom and feeling the ground rumbling.

My one longtime reader may guess that, due to today being Wednesday, I likely had to go up to Southlake and, in doing so, I likely went to Sprouts Farmers Market. That guess would be correct. You can see how stormy it was up at Sprouts in the picture above, that was taken at noon.

Due to the storming I was up really early today, the pool is now un-shocked, so I was in it when the sun tried to break through the clouds. Swimming was a good thing, but I still feel beat up. I'm hoping for peace and quiet tonight, with no earthquakes and no earplug piercing thunder. And please, no Jabba the Hut.

Stephenville UFO Update

Apparently some citizens of Stephenville have grown weary of the UFO brouhaha and fear becoming a Texas version of Roswell, New Mexico, feeling somehow embarrassed by their perception that the rest of the planet perceives Stephenville as the new Flying Saucer Capital of the World. I think it'd be a better plan to just sit back and enjoy the attention while it lasts. Which won't be long, most likely.

Meanwhile a town near Stephenville, which was also under assault the night of the UFO invasion, that town being tiny Dublin, named after a town in Ireland, known in Texas as the only source of the original version of the state drink of Texas, that being Dr Pepper. The Dublin plant is the only Dr Pepper brewery which still makes the sickeningly sweet cherry flavored concoction with pure cane sugar.

So, the powers that be in Dublin, unlike those in Stephenville, see the media circus surrounding the supposed UFO as an opportunity, with the director of Dublin economic development, Sandy Reed and members of the Dublin Rotary Club, plotting how the UFO could be a good thing for Dublin.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that a Cleburne, Texas native, Jason Leigh, who the media, such as NBC Weekend, labeled an expert on UFOs, turned out to be a bit of a crackpot. What a shock. Seems that 10 years ago Mr. Leigh attacked a Veterans Affairs Center in Waco with his Jeep because he was cranky about his veteran's benefits. After a standoff that involved the threat that he had enough explosives in his jeep to turn downtown Waco into a flower garden, Mr. Leigh surrendered and eventually received a short sentence.