Firefighters work to contain several home fires on the 1300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, Tyrone in this July 26, 2021, file photo. Mirror file photo

Three years after an explosion in Tyrone killed one person, injured four others and leveled a home, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission filed a 22-count complaint against Peoples Natural Gas Co. alleging a variety of safety violations.

The explosion killed Anna L.

Hunsicker, 83, who lived at 1306 Pennsylvania Ave. The explosion and resulting fire not only destroyed the house, but damaged two others.

A serviceman sent to the scene of a gas leak — that turned out to have been caused by a contractor’s drill piercing a main — failed to shut off the gas supply, or notify emergency services or evacuate nearby homes before the explosion, the PUC stated

The explosion happened 40 minutes after he arrived and 18 minutes after he reported “a serious incident involving suspected bore or missile damage” to his supervisor, according to the complaint.

The PUC is recommending an $800,000 fine and a series of procedural reforms at Peoples designed to enhance its response to future reports of leaking gas.

Peoples has 20 days to respond to the allegations.

Peoples is reviewing the complaint, according to an emailed statement the company provided on Friday.

“Safety is our top priority and we are committed to working with the Commission toward our shared goal of enhancing the safety of our communities and the distribution systems that serve them,” Peoples wrote. “This explosion was caused by a third-party contractor striking a Peoples’ pipeline with a horizontal drill while installing a water service line perpendicular to our line for the Borough of Tyrone.”

Employees of the contractor noticed a smell of gas at 11:50 a.m. that day,

July 26, 2021, after which a foreman reported the odor to the Peoples call center within about two minutes, according to the PUC complaint.

The contractor had used the drill from across the street, and employees noticed the smell when they opened a pit on the same side of the street as the house that eventually exploded.

The call center employee didn’t ask if the contractor could have struck a gas line — although that employee wasn’t required by Peoples’ procedures to ask, according to the complaint.

The call center issued an emergency services order within about 12 minutes of the start of the contractor’s call, leading to the dispatch of the serviceman within a minute.

The serviceman arrived on scene at 12:28 p.m. and soon asked for a People’s operations and maintenance crew, which was in turn dispatched.

At 12:50 p.m., the serviceman called his supervisor to report the suspected bore damage and a serious incident, and sometime before the explosion, the serviceman entered the basement of the adjacent house at 1306 Pennsylvania Ave.

The explosion occurred at 1:08 p.m., the time that emergency services were summoned.

The serviceman was injured and taken to the hospital, from which he was discharged the next day, according to the complaint.

The explosion led to the evacuation of a four-block area and shutdown of electrical service.

Investigators later found that the two-inch directional drill used by the contractor had pierced the six-inch plastic gas main a little below the pipe’s centerline.

The gas released by the punctures migrated into the house where Hunsicker lived.

Peoples repaired the main puncture that evening, electric service was restored before the end of the next day and gas service was restored to most of the area two days after that, according to the complaint.

The “nonconfidential” version of the complaint that the PUC made public Friday does not name the serviceman, and there are large portions redacted.

The alleged violations include:

ö Failure to take actions that could have minimized hazards, including calling 911; shutting off the gas supply, evacuating nearby homes and warning the public of danger;

ö Failure to test the serviceman for drug or alcohol intoxication following the incident;

ö Failure to have up-to-date service on fire extinguishers brought to the scene by the serviceman;

ö Failure to document aspects of the incident and to conduct a post-incident review, a root cause analysis and a review of pertinent employees’ actions within a required period of time;

ö Failure to require call center employees to participate in certain kinds of periodic training exercises.

Proposed corrective actions include:

ö Revision of call center procedures to require employees to ask contractors who call to report leaks whether they may have damaged a line; and if the contractors’ answers are yes or uncertain, to require the call center employees to notify 911;

ö A requirement for Peoples employees to call 911 if a contractor is observed working at the scene of an odor of gas or the location of a suspected leak;

ö A requirement for updated training for employees responsible for leak investigations;

ö A requirement for more frequent inspections of trenchless excavations like the one that triggered the incident in Tyrone.

The Tyrone explosion “shows the importance of taking great care on all projects involving excavation,” Peoples stated in its email.

Peoples said any contractor or individual planning to dig must:

ö Call 811 at least three business days before excavating;

ö Use prudent digging techniques when digging around marked gas lines; and

ö Immediately contact 911 and the utility if there is an odor of gas, or when a line is believed to be damaged.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.