By John Howell Sr.

Blast Timeline Monday, Nov. 21, 2011

8:30 p.m.: Residents of Macedonia Community notice loud roaring followed by flames reaching several hundred feet upward as gas pipeline ruptures and subsequently ignites
9:25 p.m.: Tennessee Gas personnel close valves to shut off supply of gas feeding through pipeline.
10:20 p.m.: Fire department personnel begin to leave posts as flames diminish.
11:30 p.m.: Fire subsides
2 a.m.: Fire is out 

By mid-week Lygunnah Bean and his neighbors in the community along Macedonia and Seven roads were adjusting to a “new normal.”

“Everybody’s back at home,” the county road manager said, following a hurried evacuation Monday night when the Tennessee Gas pipe buried underground near the Tallahatchie River burst then ignited into a towering inferno visible from as far away as Clarksdale.

The new normal includes limited access to Macedonia and Jimmy Baker Roads and to George Thomas Lane, where Bean’s home is located. Law enforcement personnel hired by the pipeline company to work while off-duty restricted traffic near the site. Investigators and workers from the pipeline company and from Entergy had swarmed the site with equipment in the two days since the blast.

“There’s a lot of activity on the levee,” Bean said. Workmen are checking for damage in the portion of the pipeline leading to the site where the pipeline burst.

Residents of the Macedonia community have shared their neighborhood with the natural gas pumping station for over 60 years, so Bean knew immediately that something was badly amiss Monday night about 8:30 p.m. when he heard the loud roar created by a large volume of escaping natural gas about one-half mile from his home, “roaring real loud like a train.”

As county road manager, Bean is also familiar with disaster protocol. He was quickly on the phone with a neighbor and fellow deacon at the nearby Macedonia M. B. Church, who happened to be the employee on duty at the pumping station. By that time the station operator had seen the drastic drop in pipeline pressure and activated the company’s emergency response plan, said Richard Wheatley, spokesman for El Paso Corp., the parent company of Tennessee Gas Pipeline.

Bean also called Panola Emergency Management Coordinator Daniel Cole, he said.

At his home on nearby Shell Road, Deputy Sheriff Earl Burdette said his 13-year-old son first noticed the loud noise and came inside the house telling him about it. When Burdette went outside and confirmed to himself the need for alarm, a radio call went out over the sheriff’s radio network for all units to go “10-8.”

Burdette said that as he finished putting on his clothes in his vehicle, the escaping gas ignited, throwing flames several hundred feet skyward, illuminating the night sky. It was about 8:30 p.m.

What followed will be recalled for years to come in the county’s collective memory. Whenever conversations shift to “Do-you-remember-when …,” the night the pipeline blew up will invariably be remembered by the thousands who saw the flames.

People with scanner radios who monitor emergency frequencies first noticed the urgency in the voices as word of the gas leak was broadcast. Then came the explosion as the gas ignited, and people flocked to the scene much as moths to flame. Cell phones exchanged text and social media messages and videos, some of which soon found their way to YouTube.

From Batesville, the fire appeared to be much closer to town than the six miles that lie between the Highway 6 and 51 intersection and the Tallahatchie River. Spectator traffic forced law enforcement officials to briefly close Highway 6 — not that passersby were in danger from the inferno so much as from each other. Macedonia Road was blocked to all but emergency traffic as was the Levee Road which leads to the blast site.

Virtually every first responder in the county was mobilized. Some fire departments were staged in areas en route to the inferno; others — Curtis-Locke Station, Red Hill and Batesville — lined up along Macedonia Road about one-half mile from where the burning gas blazed in bright contrast to the dark November night.

But after evacuating nearby residents and blocking traffic, there was little else fire fighters and law enforcement personnel could do except wait as Tennessee Gas employees closed safety valves, isolating the section of pipeline and ending the source of fuel for the flames.

About 9:25 p.m. firemen received word that Tennessee Gas personnel had closed valves to shut off the supply of gas feeding through the pipeline. Initially, the flames continued to roar.  From Macedonia Road the roar of escaping gas could easily be heard, but the flames were distant enough so that no heat was felt.

By 10:20, Curtis-Locke Station Fire Chief Dwayne Vest released fire personnel and equipment from the Batesville and Red Hill Departments. At 10:25, the Curtis-Locke Station firemen also prepared to leave.
The fire subsided about 11:30 p.m. and was totally out by 2 a.m., Wheatley said.

Bean said area residents were allowed to return home about midnight. Several families took the pipeline company up on its offer to put them up in a motel overnight, he added.

The light of the following morning revealed a huge crater where the rupture had occurred. The surrounding dirt was charred.

“The pipeline ‘segment’ that experienced the failure last night has been isolated and is not operating,” Wheatley stated in an e-mail late Tuesday. “A second pipeline segment was taken out of service as a precaution,” he added. The pipes are 24 inches in diameter, he said.

“The two pipeline segments that are not operating extend from Mainline Valve 63 to Mainline Valve 64 on two of the four pipelines,” the pipeline company spokesman continued. “We continue to serve our customers by using the two remaining pipelines that traverse Panola County, and we are by-passing the compressor station (63) near Batesville, flowing gas, but not using the compressor station itself.”

 Tennessee Gas representatives established a claims center at the Macedonia Community Center for affected residents, said Wheatley.

The investigation into the cause of the pipe rupture and ignition of the escaping gas could last months, the El Paso spokesman added.

Damage also extended to 115 KV electric lines strung over the area of the pipeline blast, Entergy spokesman George P. Cossar said Tuesday.

“At this time we plan on replacing structures 66 and 67 due to fire damage they received,” Cossar said, referring to the wooden poles, one of which could be seen burning Monday night and the other smoldering.

No customers lost electricity as a result of the explosion, Cossar said.

In Panola County on Tuesday morning, virtually everyone compared vantages and experiences from the night before, including one customer in a local business who said that when he saw the sky so brightly lighted, he thought it might be the Second Coming and dropped to his knees.

A lady who overheard rather piously replied: “Well, if you knew the Word, you’d know that would be in the east,” apparently referring to Matthew 24:27 that states, “For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

Not to be outdone, the man responded, “Well, I was just thinking of those poor folks over in Clarksdale.”