Terrible situation here in Minneapolis. One confirmed dead; cannot imagine how much worse this could have been had school been in session.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...xplosion-school.html

An explosion in a Minneapolis school has killed one person, left another missing and hospitalized nine, local authorities said.

The detonation, which occurred while construction work was taking place on the gas supply, ripped Minnehaha Academy's Upper School in half at around 10am. It destroyed the main stairwell area and a group of classrooms for grades 9-12.

I have freinds that have gone there. Minnehaha Academy has quite a history, here.

H&K-Guy

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
...cannot imagine how much worse this could have been had school been in session...detonation, which occurred while construction work was taking place on the gas supply...

Hopefully no school will ever allow construction on the gas supply to be done when students are in the building.

I imagine those killed and injured were the people doing the work.

quote:

One confirmed dead; cannot imagine how much worse this could have been had school been in session.

It would've been on the order of the New London (Texas) school explosion..a generation lost.

Prayers for the deceased and the injured.

quote:

Originally posted by sleepla8er:
Hopefully no school will ever allow construction on the gas supply to be done when students are in the building.

Hopefully no one would do construction anywhere without knowing where the gas supply is and that it is shut off.

Gas is definitely nothing to mess around with. Too many guys to a pressure check with the gas itself instead of compressed air.

I'd hope incoming gas would be routed around the building underground directly to the physical plant or boiler room. Once I was asked to remove a line and plug a tee on a 4" low pressure gas header in a basement grocery store under a parking garage. While you can stop the flow with only your hand, it sure is a lot of volume which can escape should something go wrong.

At an old church in North Philly a couple decades back I ran 200' of 2" gas pipe through the church and associated buildings - school, hall, etc. The line finally arrives at the boiler room ... and there is a side road not 50' from the boiler room. I always wondered why the church didn't pay for PGW to run them a new line from the close-by street.

That's going to require more than a new paint job. Sorry someone was killed, but glad it wasn't worse.

flashguy

Two deaths in this tragedy... the school's receptionist, and an 81-year old janitor.

Sad event to occur one day after the 10-year anniversary of the I35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

As Ronin said - thank goodness school was not in session!