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U.S. NEWSTuesday 4 April 2017
At Press Time:
Fire chief: 3 dead, 4 hurt when boiler explodes in St. Louis
JIM SUHR
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) —
An explosion launched a
van-sized boiler through
the roof a St. Louis box
company and slammed
much of it down onto a
laundry business across the
street on Monday, killing
three people and injuring
four others, authorities said. was undergoing surgery,
One person died in the
blast about 8 a.m. at the
Loy-Lange Box Co. and two
others were killed when a
large piece of the boiler
crashed into the nearby
Faultless Healthcare Linen
building’s office area, Fire
Chief Dennis Jenkerson
said.
The explosion appears to
have been an accident,
but investigators were
trying to pinpoint what
caused the cast iron boil-
er — estimated to weigh
a ton to a ton and a half
— to explode, Jenkerson
said. The blast occurred in
a largely industrial area of rescuers arrived, the fire
south St. Louis.
Two injured victims were in
critical condition, and one
Jenkerson said. The injured
include a linen company
worker who was found
pinned beneath the boiler,
which Jenkerson said was
roughly 4 feet in diameter
and 10 feet long (1.2 me-
ters in diameter and 3 me-
ters long). The boiler was
used to produce steam to
power the box company’s
equipment.
This Monday, April 3, 2017 photo from video provided by KMOV shows damage to the roof of a
box company in St. Louis after a boiler exploded and flew before crashing through the roof of a
nearby laundry business. Authorities said several people were killed as a result of the explosion.
The boiler was still hot when the U.S. Department of La-
chief said, noting that the
equipment traveled up to
500 feet (150 meters).
Though none of the victims’
names has been released,
Faultless Healthcare Linen’s
chief operating officer,
Mark Spence, told the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch the
three victims there were
new hires who were fill-
ing out paperwork when
the boiler came crashing
down on them, killing two
and injuring the third.
“It’s emotionally over-
whelming just to think what
these poor people experi-
enced,” Spence said.
A third building was dam-
aged when a piece of
pipe — about 8 feet (2.5
meters) long — linked to
the explosion went through
its roof, Jenkerson said.
Other debris was found on
the street.
Investigators will seek out
and review the boiler’s
inspection and mainte-
nance records, though “it
appears just to be a com-
mercial accident,” Jenker-
son said. Investigators from
(KMOV via AP)
bor’s Occupational Safety
and Health Administration
were on the scene.
It wasn’t immediately clear
if anyone was working on
the boiler at the time of the
blast.
OSHA’s online records
show that Loy-Lange was
cited last year for a “gen-
eral requirement” arising
from holes in floors that
prevented proper clean-
ing. The company paid a
$3,741 fine, half of what
OSHA initially assessed.
The company also paid a
$6,566 fine in 2015, and a
$2,450 fine the year before
that for what OSHA classi-
fied as “serious” violations.
In 2014, the company paid
$2,450 of an initial $3,500
fine for improper energy
control procedures, such
as failing to properly train
employees to ensure ma-
chinery was turned off
and powered down and
for not conducting annual
energy control inspections.
OSHA spokesman Scott Al-
len couldn’t say if that vio-
lation had anything to do
with the boiler.q