MARCH 14, 2015
SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NEW JERSEY
A house explosion (possibly from natural gas leak) in Seaside
Heights sent a 26-year-old woman to the hospital for evaluation, according to
police and fire officials.
Police responded after getting a call at 10:10 this morning
about the two-story apartment building on 223 Sumner Avenue, Seaside Heights,
NJ 08751, according to Steve Kormer of the Seaside Heights Police Department.
Ernest Leinbach, 43, of Hamilton Avenue, lives two blocks
away from the explosion.
"I was listening to the radio, and the house shook, and
I actually thought something actually hit the house," Leinbach said.
"I didn't know - maybe something fell out of the sky. It was weird. Not
long after that, I heard the fire trucks. I went for a ride and saw the road
all shut down and saw the gas trucks come by."
The explosion occurred on the first floor as maintenance
work was being done on the house, Kormer said. The 26-year-old woman was upstairs in the
second floor at the time. Her injuries are not deemed serious. She was taken to
Community Medical Center in Toms River.
Fire Chief William Rumbolo said that the explosion
"bumped up the second floor and knocked out the side walls."
Rumbolo said the house will likely be deemed unsafe for
habitation, and that the explosion caused "significant" damage.
Sumner Avenue is currently shut as police respond to the
situation.
This is the third house explosion in just three weeks in
Ocean County. In Stafford Township, 15 people were injured in February when a
natural gas explosion ripped through a home. And on March 2, a man was badly
burned in a home explosion in Point Pleasant Beach.
Source:www.nj.com
As we have been commenting for years now, the New Jersey
natural gas infrastructure is significantly deteriorated due to the very old
(and expired) cast iron pipes and unprotected steel pipes in existence.
Some of that infrastructure is unmarked or not adequately
marked. If we also consider the heavily
dense areas and the construction activities going on, the risk of rupturing
these pipelines (either transmission or distribution) is rather high and
happens on a daily basis.
It is not unreasonable to assume that Hurricane Sandy
damaged the infrastructure in this area, as Seaside Heights was hit very hard
by the Superstorm. Lots of re-building
and maintenance work is still going on and much needs to be done.
Just recently PSE&G decided to replace some of that old
and expired (aka, very dangerous piping) piping that leaks like a sieve. They announced the pipe replacements only
after we had the two massive home explosions two weeks ago that were displayed on
the national news. Certainly they face a
big challenge, as the piping is located in very densely populated neighborhoods.