Oklahoma City Accidents
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When I took a new promotion to the Oklahoma City E&P office,
I was never too sure whether or not I should take the job offer.
After I got there the first month, I wished that I had not accepted,
But things got better and then I was glad that I did not reject it.
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Oklahoma City Accidents
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We moved to Oklahoma City in December 1978 for a new job there.
I was promoted to replace an Engineer who dropped dead, I swear.
He had a massive heart attack from job pressure I was told.
Resulting from the job they put me on the day I arrived so cold.
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When they told me about the job I was taking over that first day,
I thought “what have I gotten my self into?” but I was there to stay.
We were converting an oil absorption plant to a booster station,
To feed gas to a new expander plant starting up with gas dehydration.
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Piping in the old oil absorption plant being converted to a booster station.
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The Engineer that died had made all the rough out drawings,
But no one else new a thing about the project I was installing.
I worked my butt off learning what I could before the shutdown,
Then went back to Fritch to move my family to the new town.
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The old gas plant had 25 horizontal 230 HP Clark engine driven compressor units with a flywheel in the middle.
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I got back to work the day of the shutdown and headed up there.
About an hour after I got there, I heard a large explosion in the air.
An old metal 24 inch pipe head had blown off like a big rocket,
And totaled a pickup sitting there as that missile head did hit it.
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The 24 inch bolted on cap that blew off and destroyed the pick up was similar to this.
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After checking, they had shut down without blinding the fuel system,
Coming off of a 1000 psig line and the 10 psig fuel system blew then,
Because the fuel valve had leaked through pressuring it up too.
I began to see why the Engineer had a heart attack seeing this through.
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The volume of gas was small so no fire occurred which was good,
I stayed there all day and night checking everything like I should.
The remaining changes were made with no further incidents,
But there was one more screw up that caused another accident.
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When they were pigging the gas line back from Kingfisher Plant,
The pigging ball got stuck in the gas line ball receiver stand.
The plant manager opened the barrel to air and the valve did open.
The 12 inch ball shot through the cooling tower like a giant weapon.
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They closed all the valves and depressured the barrel. Then opened the closure and opened valve A. And launched that 12 inch ball into the cooling tower on to who knows where.
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They never found that 12 inch ball that shot out of that barrel,
All they know is that it was heading north like a bat out of hell.
I thought the booster station manager would have the big one too.
Before that crazy job they threw me into was over and through.
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Things got better after that first job was over at that old facility,
During my short stay there, four new gas plants started with utilities.
We were busy and I had whipper snapper engineers on the payroll,
To train too as we worked with a very heavy load taking its toll.
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About the time I had learned all our facilities well in the City,
They promoted me to Houston so I started over, what a big pity.
The job in Houston was a real challenge that I really did enjoy,
But the traffic was awful near downtown area where I was employed.
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By Bill
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PS: no one was hurt and minimal property damage occurred as a result of the accidents, but it could have been a lot worse.
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Thanks for reading Oklahoma City Accidents,
Bill