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Officials reveal cause of Tacony explosion

    by Fred Gusoff
    Published 

By John Loftus

Times Staff Writer

It was a furnace in a chiropractor's office that ignited leaking gas at Torresdale Avenue and Disston Street on Jan. 18, resulting in a massive explosion that leveled buildings and killed a Philadelphia Gas Works employee.

In a statement released Friday, city Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers reported that natural gas leaking from a broken main had accumulated within the office of Disston Chiropractic & Rehabilitation, at 6932 Torresdale Ave., and was ignited when the furnace kicked on.

The resulting explosion killed 19-year-old Mark Keeley of Fox Chase, a PGW employee who had been dispatched to the site with other workers. Keeley was outside the building at the time of the blast, which started a fire that raged for about two hours. Keeley had been on the job just four months and was on one of two PGW crews sent to investigate reports of gas odors.

Four other PGW workers were injured, three of them critically, in the explosion and fire. A firefighter, Donald Pearl of Engine 36 at Frankford and Torresdale avenues, also was hurt.

The explosion tore through the chiropractor's office on the intersection's southwest corner, broke windows along Torresdale Avenue, consumed vehicles and forced the evacuation of nearby homes.

PGW spokesman Cameron Kline said the gas had leaked from a broken 12-inch, high-pressure main that erupted. The cause of the pipe break remains unknown, Kline said on Monday.

Keeley's body was found under rubble. Hans Kellner, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, said afterward that the worker's death was attributed to "blunt impact and thermal injuries."

PGW's Kline said the Jan. 18 explosion was the first fatal blast fueled by natural gas since 1977.

Investigators devoted weeks to probing the Tacony explosion. Some Torresdale Avenue businesses resumed normal operations right away, but for others, that took weeks. The chiropractor's office and several other businesses are gone.

Kline said anyone who smells gas should call PGW's hot line at 215-235-1212 and get to a safe place. Natural gas has no odor, Kline said. The rotten-egg smell associated with natural gas is mercapton, an organic compound that is added so the presence of gas is noticeable.

Reporter John Loftus can be reached at 215-354-3110 or jloftus@bsmphilly.com