Tag: explosion

Executives at the utility company responsible for September's natural gas explosions and fires in Massachusetts should step down, congressional members said Monday at a special hearing into the disaster. They painted a picture of a corporation that cut corners and lacked the internal procedures to prevent, let alone respond to, the Sept. 13 disaster that killed one person, injured dozens more, damaged more than 100 homes and left thousands without heat or hot water in the Merrimack Valley communities of Lawrence, North Andover and Andover. "At every step of the process, there was a chance to avoid this disaster," said U.S. Sen. Ed Markey to company executives. Instead of choosing to do things the right way, you chose to do things the easy way and the result was disaster." Joseph Hamrock, CEO of NiSource, and Steve Bryant, the president of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, said the company was taking steps to assure another disaster doesn't happen. Charlie Baker has proposed legislation changing that in Massachusetts. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, pushed the executives to disclose if anyone had been fired as a result of the disaster, noting the company has been responsible for a number of gas leak incidents in Massachusetts in recent years. Hamrock demurred, saying that the company would "take all appropriate actions" once the ongoing review into the incident is complete. Congress members also used the hearing to underscore deficiencies they saw in natural gas oversight at the federal and local level. Don't miss a thing Get breaking news alerts as they happen

Emergency crews are responding to housefires at homes across three communities outside of Boston. A local police chief says 20-25 homes are on fire, commenting that 'You can't even see the sky.' FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing…