The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that Kilford Engineering Inc., a contractor installing a fiber-optic conduit, failed to follow safe excavation procedures, causing a backhoe to strike a 4-inch gas pipeline and sparking a massive fire that engulfed a restaurant and a residence above and caused more than $10 million in damage to nearby buildings.
“This accident shows there are rules and procedures in place to ensure safe excavation; however, in this case, the construction crew chose not to abide by them,” said Robert Hall, director of the NTSB’s Office of Railroad, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Investigations.
PG&E took more than two hours to shut off gas in the area due mainly to the lack of proper software that would have helped the utility to quickly find the locations of valves, according to the 50-page report. That caused a 50-minute delay in capping the gas line, the report concluded, “and increased the safety risk to the neighborhood.”
“Had PG&E incorporated detailed location information into the software program used to develop its valve isolation plan before this accident, it would have reduced the time to isolate the natural gas release,” the report said.
Investigators also found that a San Francisco police officer denied a request by PG&E gas mechanics to escort them through backed up traffic to the site of the fire, the NTSB found.
But the report said PG&E officials should have made the request to 911 dispatchers, and said the failure to escort PG&E workers did not affect the timeliness of the response. Still, the NTSB said, PG&E failed to follow its own procedures.
PG&E spokesman John Kaufman said the NLRB investigation made it clear that Kilford was at fault for causing the gas release and resulting inferno but said PG&E will review the report for suggestions on how to improve its response to pipeline incidents.
“At PG&E, nothing is more important than the safety of our employees and the customers we serve,” he said in a statement in which he thanked the efforts of the San Francisco police and fire departments and PG&E crews, who, he said, shut off gas in the immediate area within 20 minutes.
Kilford officials did not respond to a call seeking comment on the report.
The NTSB also said that California lacked an excavation damage enforcement program at the time, missing an opportunity to identify and stop dangerous situations like the one that caused the Geary Boulevard fire. The state has since created an excavation safety monitoring program, the NTSB said.
The report recommended that PG&E and the San Francisco police and fire departments work together to develop a collaborative plan to respond to gas pipeline incidents faster. It also suggests that PG&E improve its pipeline monitoring software to allow it to more efficiently and quickly locate valves that need to be turned off.
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