One of the biggest explosions and fires in recent Texas pipeline history was apparently sparked by a disoriented SUV driver who took the wrong road out of an oversized Walmart parking lot in the Houston-area city of Deer Park Monday. The driver crashed through a fence and collided with the valve of a natural gas pipeline, causing a fire that immediately incinerated the vehicle and may have caused the vehicle operator’s doom.
“I felt the heat coming straight through my car window,” an alarmed motorist nearby told the Houston Chronicle.
At least four people were injured and five homes damaged by the fire involving a pipeline owned by Energy Transfer, a firm co-founded by the politically connected billionaire Kelcy Warren. It could have been much worse: An emergency order issued on Tuesday to shelter in place affected Walmart, an urgent care center, other busy businesses on Spencer Highway, plus more than 1,000 homes, San Jacinto College, and other nearby schools. (Some homes and businesses near the blaze were evacuated.) This kind of ritual is so common in these parts that the City of Deer Park has a video of a costumed oversized turtle character named Wally that it uses to remind children of the steps to follow.
