Fatal Car Explosion at Walmarts Parking Lot-Kissimmee, Fla.

http://www.wftv.com ^ | October 14, 2004 | WFTV

[sheikdetailfeather]

I know this cannot compete with the stolen donut truck story in Orlando, but....

[Izzy Dunne]

It's the voter intimidation stuff, starting early...

[wideawake]

So strange.

A few days ago car exploded in Weekhawken, NJ with a blast strong enough to break nearby windows.

Then a few days later a home in Long Island NY blew sky high leaving not a brick standing and the same thing happened THE SAME DAY in Edison, NJ.

Getting weirder.

[Yo-Yo]

The Ford Taurus isn't derived from the Ford Pinto, is it?

[GeorgiaFreeper]

Preemptive strikes by special forces?

[oceanview]

that was not a home, it was a car dealership. a car dealership with 15 people in it, none of whom smelled gas and left the building - which blew up as a result of a gas explosion.

[Boundless]

> We have a good hypothesis about what we think happened here

The last one of these, a few days ago, was a welder who
had an apparently leaky acetylene tank in the passenger
compartment.

[Jenya]

Prayers to him and his loved ones. Fire must be one the most horrendous ways to die.

[konaice]

The two NJ incidents were fully explained, Gas leak in house, welding tank leak in car.

Time to put the tin foil hat away...

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

The same day as the Long Island Car dealership exploded from a gas leak, a home in Weehawken exploded after they did some excavating in the yard.

[js1138]

I was going to ask if it was a Ford product. I've had two gas tanks fall out of Fords when the straps broke.

[blackdog]

Did these events all happen in the early morning/sunrise hours of early fall? Street gas line leaks tend to hover under cars, in low lying areas as well as gasoline vapors from leaking lines will not disperse due to calm air and temperature inversions. Once the sun is up higher and creates convection heat, all the vapors of natural gas and gasoline disperse quickly.

One of the ways to tell if natural gas lines are leaking under your street is to inspect the trees along the curbs. If they are yellowing and dropping leaves long before the others and seem sickly, it's usually the gas lines leaking. Utility companies in older cities are losing as much as 30% of their natural gas from leaking old gas lines, most of which are 50 plus years old.

[pdbeaches]

Ranks right up there with beheadings.

[meyer]

The Ford Taurus isn't derived from the Ford Pinto, is it?

No, but even the Pinto required substantial rear impact to explode.

My take is a fuel line leak near a hot exhaust, resulting in a small gasoline fire that spread until the tank let loose. Or, maybe the guy forgot to pay his loan shark.

[NCjim]

Good thing I just got rid of my wife's Mercury Sable... *g

[gridlock]

I know this cannot compete with the stolen donut truck story in Orlando, but....

I think they may be related. Are the pre-election Slammie festivities about to begin?

[Pearls Before Swine]

Leaky fuel line near exhaust manifold? Usually there's some warning, like stinking, boiling gas.

[Boundless]

> My take is a fuel line leak near a hot exhaust,

I have an older van in which I've had two fuel fume episodes,
both corrected.

The first was deteriorating injector lines, which could have
resulted in an engine fire, given an ignition source.

The second was the body pads wearing holes in the top of
the fuel tank. That could have caused a Wal-Mart scenario.

[Graybeard58]

Fire must be one the most horrendous ways to die.

The reason some people chose to jump from windows at the W.T.C. towers.

[Jenya]

Ranks right up there with beheadings.

Agreed, but if given a choice of being burned alive or beheaded. I'd take the later.