A Close Call for Chicagoans: Only Luck Saved Hegewisch from the Same Fate as River West

By: Paul F. CuadrosA Southeast Side neighborhood narrowly missed a natural gas disaster similar to the explosions and fires that rocked River West on Jan. 17 and killed four people, The Chicago Reporter has learned.

In June 1989, a Peoples Gas Light and Coke Co. crew mistakenly cut gas lines in Hegewisch, causing a dangerous surge. Luckily, there were no fires or explosions because the accident happened during the summer, when gas use is low.

The incident went unreported in the media and Peoples Gas did not notify the Illinois Commerce Commission or federal authorities. The accident also did not prompt the utility to incorporate written procedures for handling a gas surge into its Emergency Operating Plan.

City officials first heard about the Hegewisch incident when the National Transportation Safety Board questioned Peoples Gas officials about the River West accident in hearings on May 13 and 14.

The close call in Hegewisch was an unheeded warning to Peoples Gas about the problem that led to the River West tragedy, utility critics charge.

"Apparently they never learn from their past mistakes," said Martin R. Cohen, associate director of the Citizens Utility Board, a watchdog group. "If they had an overpressure similar to this and didn't review the procedures, it's inconceivable to have allowed it to happen again."

Peoples Gas officials refused to answer questions about the Hegewisch incident.

Narrow Escape
On a warm June morning in 1989, retired hairdresser Virginia L. Cap was home alone at 13031 S. Carondolet St. in Hegewisch when she heard hissing coming from her kitchen. "The hissing was terrible. It was coming from the stove and it blew out the pilot lights," she said. "Then I smelled gas. It was hissing out of my furnace and hot water tank. It scared the hell out of me."

She called Peoples Gas. An operator told her the company would send someone out. Her sister, who lives nearby, called Cap to complain of the same problem. Then the hissing stopped.

Two blocks away at 12937 S. Commercial St., Chicago police officer Stanley J. Kus heard his oven hissing. He opened the oven door and saw a "six-to-eight-inch flame on one of the pilot lights." He called the gas company and was told that workers were nearby. He went to the basement and shut off the gas. "We just got lucky, we didn't have any explosions," he said.

Several hours later, the neighborhood was "crawling with gas people," Cap said. Servicemen were going door to door relighting pilots. Peoples Gas trucks and crews took over the parking lot of St. Florian School, 13110 S. Baltimore Ave., and set up a command post, Cap recalled.

The Peoples Gas crew had mistakenly cut a regulator control line, which helps measure gas pressure.

The regulator tried to compensate by increasing pressure. About a pound per square inch of gas pressure was released into a system that normally runs at a quarter pound per square inch.

Cap said Peoples Gas never explained to her why the surge happened, but since River West, she has a pretty good idea. "God, if it hadn't been summer, we would have been victims. It would have wiped out the whole neighborhood," she said.

Chain of Command
Peoples Gas' emergency procedures didn't help the people who were killed in the Jan. 17 explosions in River West. The company's plan, created in 1983, says it is impractical to "outline the specific action to be taken for any type of failure at any location on all gas facilities." Instead, the utility relies on a chain of command and the "extensive experience and knowledge" of supervisors to take "appropriate steps" in an emergency.

Yet Peoples Gas supervisors waited 30 minutes before shutting off the gas, while fire spread to 18 buildings in River West.

"With a true gas emergency, there isn't time for that chain of command," Cohen said. "Apparently the people at the site didn't understand and didn't know the magnitude of the problem. If they had, they wouldn't have waited for the bureaucratic response."

Last month, company officials told the Safety Board that they have only two supervisors and two alternates to respond to any gas regulator failure in the city. The board took testimony on the River West accident on March 5 and 6, and on May 13 and 14.

The senior supervisor, William Reinert, superintendent of gas operations, was driving home to Cicero on Jan. 17, when supervisor Gerald A. Best first detected a problem with a gas regulator at Erie and Green streets.

Best's call, at 4:08 p.m., went to the second-in-command, James J. Kirrane, general supervisor of gas operations. Best testified that he told his boss that high pressure gas was surging through the system. Kirrane testified that Best did not give him enough details to assess the situation, but also admitted that he did not ask for them.

Kirrane mistakenly assumed the surge was located at the Chicago Avenue and Carpenter Street regulator, and sent a Peoples Gas crew there instead.

Reinert, who joined the conversation from his car radio, agreed with the decision. "Recognizing we had a crew (at Erie and Green) with well over 35 years of combined experience, I didn't feel there was any problem there."

Best said he did not believe he was authorized to shut off gas to the area; Kirrane did not tell him to do so until 4:35 p.m.

Both Kirrane and Reinert testified that Best should have shut the system down when he first detected the problem. But they also admitted that the company has no written policy authorizing such action.

Even after River West, the utility still has no specific procedures for handling an overpressure emergency, Kirrane testified.

On Feb. 7, Peoples Gas announced it was "taking extra precautions to assure continued safe operations" in three areas similar to River West: Hegewisch, in suburban Norridge, and in Hyde Park on the South Side. These neighborhoods rely on only two gas lines because they are partially obstructed by water, highways or parks.

The company halted work in Hegewisch last year when the area was chosen as the site of the city's proposed third airport. After River West, Peoples Gas decided to speed up the conversion in these areas to medium pressure. But Vice President Patrick J. Doyle said, 'We don't know whether, or to what extent, the isolation of River West may have aggravated the situation there."

Medium pressure is considered safer because gas is piped directly into each building, limiting the consequences of system failures to one home instead of hundreds.

An increase in pressure "is more likely to be handled by the other regulators," in an area that is not isolated, said John P. Erickson, a vice president for the American Gas Association, an industry group.

Task Force
The City of Chicago is powerless to prevent another natural gas emergency because the Daley administration cannot compel Peoples Gas to change its practices and policies.

And the city's emergency response plan does not specify how to handle a dangerous gas crisis. A city task force charged with developing the plan was disbanded on Dec. 30 without completing its work.

Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed the task force in September 1990, after fires at Commonwealth Edison Co. facilities on the West Side caused a three-day blackout that resulted in four deaths.

"I am not aware of any budgeted funds beyond what we've done at this point," said Jessica Feldman, the administrator for the task force who now is in the city's new Department of the Environment. "We're not going to do any other inspections."

Daley vowed to review the utilities' safety and maintenance procedures and "their ability to prevent and respond to emergencies and disasters."

But Edison was the only utility the task force ever reviewed. The city paid $929,000 to Failure Analysis Associates, Inc. in Alexandria, Va., to conduct the study, which was completed in June 1991. Failure Analysis engineer William E. Snowden, who directed the project, said the city had originally proposed spending $1 million to examine Edison, Peoples Gas and Illinois Bell Telephone Co.

Lee V. Dickinson, office director of Failure Analysis, told the Reporter that his company was directed to focus on Edison and "peripherally" on the other utilities.

However, mayoral aide Rosanna Marquez now says the task force was supposed to examine Edison only and merely gather information from the other utilities.

But Peoples Gas answered only five of the city's 14 questions. For example, Peoples Gas has failed to explain its procedures for handling fires. The utility has not told the city how often it updates its response plan and how many disaster drills it has conducted in the last 10 years.

"My understanding is we haven't withdrawn those requests and we're waiting for Peoples Gas," Marquez said. The city has been waiting since September 1990.

Snowden said that more extensive discussions between the city and Peoples Gas might lead to modifications' in both their emergency response plans.

Company officials told the Safety Board that they respond to emergency calls before notifying the Chicago Fire Department, even when fire companies are closer to the scene. Equipment failures, fires and gas leaks are considered emergencies, they said.

On Jan. 17, the utility's service department received a "gas in the house" call from a River West customer at 3:51 p.m., and sent a worker at 4:17 p.m. He arrived at 4:20 p.m., 29 minutes after the call.

Peoples Gas Supervisor John M. Henry said of the Fire Department, "I don't think they could beat our response time on that," even though there is a fire company at 1129 W. Chicago Ave., just around the comer from the explosion that killed three people. "They would probably call for us anyway," he added.

Fire Department spokesman James E. Corbett said firefighters respond to all calls in four to five minutes.

An analysis by the Reporter found that West Town had the highest number of natural gas fires of any community area in the city between 1987 and 199 1. West Town and Logan Square had 18 natural gas fires each, more than four times the city average, according to Fire Department records.

Corbett said the department was unaware that West Town had so many gas fires, and fire officials do not discuss how to prevent gas fires with the utility.

No Power
The City of Chicago has no franchise agreement with Peoples Gas. Therefore, the job of investigating the utility falls to the Illinois Commerce Commission, Marquez said. The utility is "not within the city's jurisdiction," Marquez added. "We are not gas experts."

But the ICC has done little to ensure the safety of the Peoples Gas system or the proper training of its workers to handle emergencies, the Reporter found.

In a 1988 audit, the ICC cited the utility for its lack of training. And last December, the commission found that Peoples Gas still did not have minimum qualification standards for its employees.

While the ICC cannot force Peoples Gas to follow its recommendations, it can penalize the utility by rejecting a rate increase. Chicago-area utility watchdog groups asked the ICC to consider the audit in Peoples Gas' last rate case in 1990, but the commission refused.

Michael J. Adams, whose division did the audit, said the information was outdated at the time of the rate case. "The timeframe of the audit was 1987 to 1988," he said. "You can't apply information then to what happened in 1990."

The ICC also rejected a September 1990 claim from Gas Workers Union Local 18007 that Peoples Gas had ordered workers to "install a (gas) regulator without proper training or education." An ICC investigation found that while regulators had been installed properly, the mechanics "may have received limited on-the-job training." A new training school at Peoples Gas' Crawford station, set to open in 1991, should better prepare workers, the ICC said.

Peoples Gas first recognized the need for formal training programs in 1984, Reinert told the Safety Board. But the company did not conduct its first regulator maintenance course until March and April of 1991. Kirrane admitted that workers were not tested after the course. And the training did not include how to handle an overpressure emergency.

Gerald A. Best, the supervisor who first detected the gas surge in River West, told the Safety Board in March that he had not been trained to handle such an emergency.

Everyone is waiting for the Safety Board to finish its investigation.

While the board cannot "if it force Peoples Gas to make changes, its report, expected in late 1992 or early 1993, could compel other agencies to act.

"We have zero enforcement," said Charles Batten, the board's chief investigator. "We have a lot of authority to investigate, but we don't have the power to implement the recommendations."

The ICC, for example, could force Peoples Gas to meet new training standards. The federal Office of Pipeline Safety could change regulations, which the ICC would have to enforce. And the Illinois General Assembly could pass laws forcing the ICC to take further action.

State Rep. Clement Balanoff (D-Chicago), who represents Hegewisch, has sponsored a bill requiring Peoples Gas to install valves that would close off the gas supply when there is a sudden change in pressure. On May 22, the bill passed the Illinois House of Representatives 62-46.

"This bill was a direct result of the explosions," Balanoff said. The bill's Senate sponsor is Sen. Miguel del Valle (D-Chicago), who represents West Town.

Gov. Jim Edgar has not taken a position on the bill, said spokesman Dan Egler.

State Rep. Ellis B. Levin (D-Chicago) introduced legislation to toughen the ICC's regulatory powers. The bill would require the ICC to report annually on the condition of utility transmission lines or pipes; double the number of pipeline inspectors to 14; and force the utilities to report dangerous accidents. Gas utilities would have to file annual reports on all accidents, which the ICC could use in rate cases.

But the House public utilities committee rejected the bill on May 22.

"I'm bound and determined to come up with something," said Levin, the committee's chairman.

In 1982, the Labor Coalition on Public Utilities, a watchdog group, filed a complaint with the ICC, charging that Peoples Gas' infrastructure was deteriorating and was a safety risk. In 1988, the ICC ruled there was insufficient evidence to investigate.

"I feel the ICC bears considerable responsibility for the accidents over the past years, including the River West incident," said Lois Anne Rosen, the group's executive director. "You have to find commerce commissioners who are willing to protect the interest of the public."

"We do what we can with the people we have, but with only seven inspectors for the entire state you can't begin to cover it," said ICC spokeswoman Beth Bosch.

On Feb. 26, Cook County State's Attorney Jack O'Malley petitioned the ICC to investigate and ensure the safety of Hegewisch, Norridge and Hyde Park.

"The recent information that came out about Hegewisch in particular bolsters the need by the ICC to investigate the company's procedures and make sure the system is safe in those areas," said Assistant State's Attorney Thomas Rowland.

"Clearly they [Peoples Gas] need to do a comprehensive review of all their emergency procedures," Cohen said. "This disaster should not have happened. It could have been prevented by quicker action."

On May 27, three years after the Hegewisch accident, Peoples Gas workers finally showed up at Virginia Cap's door to install a regulator.

"It's a relief to think we have a safety feature, but it should have been done immediately," Cap said.

Contributing: Paul Caine