Dallas (WBAP/KLIF) – Federal officials say a natural gas explosion at a Dallas home that killed a 12-year-old girl came after Atmos Energy failed to find a damaged line despite two nearby homes being destroyed in gas-related fires on the two previous days.
National Transportation Safety Board officials said that after those first two incidents, Atmos should have isolated the natural gas line and evacuated residents they fault Atmos for not adequately investigating the first two fires.
The 5-member board found that the probable cause of the Feb. 23, 2018 fatal explosion at 3534 Espanola Drive was “the ignition of an accumulation of natural gas that leaked from the gas main that was damaged during a sewer replacement project 23 years earlier, and was undetected by Atmos Energy Corporation’s investi
gation of two related natural gas incidents on the two days prior to the explosion.”
Linda “Michellita” Rogers was killed and four others were injured in the explosion in a neighborhood near Dallas Love Field.
In the aftermath of the fatal explosion, Atmos had hired a consultant who concluded that geologic condition and heavy rainfall “created underground conditions that could not have been predicted or foreseen.”
The NTSB brought in the US Army Corps of Engineers who found that soil conditions and movement was predictable, and should have been part of an integrity management program for Atmos.
(Copyright 2020 WBAP/KLIF 24/7 News. This report contains material from the WFAA-TV)
