Gas Line Explosion Destroys Home in Snohomish County
A tragic error during a pipe connection leaves three dead and others severely burned after a home is leveled.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Snohomish, March 20—By an explosion of gas at Marysville, this county, this afternoon, five persons were injured, three of them fatally. The explosion was followed by a fire which destroyed several buildings. The fatally injured are Mrs. H. Taylor, Wm. Barr, Mrs. Taylor’s father-in-law, and Miss Hankin, a girl about 14 years of age. Of other injured ones, three were sisters of Mrs. Taylor. They were seriously burned, but the physicians think they will recover. The explosion occurred while laborers were making some connection from Mr. William's well to their main line. A heavy pressure caused a break in the pipe, and the gas, escaping in large volumes, soon filled the house. Before the break could be repaired, the gas caught fire from a grate in the house of Mrs. Taylor, and the explosion followed. Mrs. Taylor, with her father, father-in-law, and Miss Hankin, were seated on the porch in front of the house. They were enveloped in the flames and terribly burned. The house took fire and the flames quickly spread to adjoining buildings, consuming seven of them in a short time.
“A heavy pressure caused a break in the pipe, and the gas, escaping in large volumes, soon filled the house.”
Natural gas infrastructure remains a critical safety issue in modern Pacific Northwest urban planning. While the scale of home construction has changed, the danger of utility-related explosions persists as a reminder of the fragility of residential safety in a growing region.
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