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12darrenk t1_jdlz91w wrote

Reply to comment by SquishySand in Palmer’s in Reading exploded and was ablaze, most articles still not saying much :( by vintageideals

It's really hard to say this early if corners were cut. All signs point to a natural gas explosion. Any number of things could have happened to cause a leak and explosion.

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KrauerKing t1_jdoc8rd wrote

And reports of people saying they were being overwhelmed by the smell of a gas leak and no reports of an immediate stop on all machinery? In theater shows get stopped if a prop is to close to a moving lift. There's no excuse to not shutting down other than "do you know the loss of revenue from having to spin down and back up again?"

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Socketfusion t1_jdot1ko wrote

People are stupid. I worked a pretty large natural gas explosion investigation at a medium sized suburban commercial building. There were multiple 911 calls reporting a potential leak, but when the fire department showed up, almost no one had evacuated. People were still in their yoga class or catching up on some work on a Saturday. Thankfully it didn't blow up until shortly after the fire department got there and no one was injured.

Of course there is the possibility that the company are shit bags and didn't allow shut downs or evacuation. But it isn't a certainty.

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SquishySand t1_jdm1ojw wrote

That's true. it could be decaying infrastructure.

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MaMakossa t1_jdo6iuq wrote

Pardon if my questions are nonsensical as I am just trying to understand:

But who is responsible for checking the integrity of the infrastructure? Natural gas leak or not - why hasn’t the corporation been aware of the state of their own properties?

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