Appomattox pipeline rupture drew national attention

The fireball that sent a shock wave through Appomattox a year ago has reverberated throughout the pipeline industry and made the town a household name in other communities with pipelines.

Williams Gas Co. operates three lines that run side by side and move natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico through Appomattox to New York, and one of those three lines ruptured Sept. 14, 2008. The gas it released ignited into a fireball that leveled two houses and injured five people.

The company eventually settled damage claims with 130 property owners; that plus work on the lines totaled about $15 million.

News of the rupture spread quickly among other gas companies as well as in communities that have one thing in common with Appomattox -- their proximity to a pipeline.

"It was certainly a wake-up call," said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, which promotes fuel transportation safety through education and advocacy.

Larry Hjalmarson, vice president of operations at Williams, said, "This industry is extremely safe. A rupture is rare. A rupture that impacts people is really rare."

The explosion caused Williams to re-evaluate and reinforce underlying protections on its pipelines systemwide, said Jeffrey Wiese, associate administrator of pipeline safety for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The rupture was caused by external corrosion that thinned the pipeline walls 50 percent to 75 percent. The metal could not withstand the pressure of 800 pounds per square inch.

Williams was fined nearly $1 million after investigators found possible failures to "address regulatory requirements for monitoring and preventing external corrosion," according to an agency news release.

The company has stepped up its corrosion-control measures nationwide, Wiese said.

"If you look at the statistics . . . incidents with any consequence to people, injuries and fatalities, the trends are downward over the past 20 years," he said. "The threat to the public is going down at the same time the public is drawing more on it."

While the Appomattox explosion has drawn concern along other pipeline corridors, it also has drawn praise for how well emergency responders handled the crisis.

Bobby Wingfield, emergency-services coordinator for Appomattox County, has been called to other states to discuss how seamlessly the various public-safety officials came together during the disaster. Virginia's Department of Emergency Management is studying the community's response, too.

"They did so many things right," said Hjalmarson, the Williams executive. "It's quite a thing to be proud of."

County officials have made some changes in the aftermath. Most significantly, the county's emergency communications center received an addition: Williams has funded a system to automatically notify utilities when there's a major outage, Wingfield said. During the rupture, it was difficult to get messages to the utility companies -- phone, electric, cable -- that lost service, he said.

The program, installed a few months ago, also allows dispatchers to map the areas affected.

Carrie Sidener is a staff writer for The News & Advance in Lynchburg.