Oil tanker on fire in Providence harbor

Local TV news

[Semper911]

An oil tanker moored in Providence harbor was apparently struck by lightning, and is burning in towering flames. I posted this in breaking because there is an LPG tanker moored nearby, and officials are worried the mooring lines on the burning tanker will burn through, and it will drift toward the LPG.

[Semper911]

TV update: The ship has moved into the channel, and it is under it's own power (and anchored??? that was unclear). All that is burning now is the dock that the ship was tied up at.

I'm calling code 4. We now return you to your regularly scheduled freep.

[silentknight]

Anymore pics?

[ladyjane]

I don't know what your anxiety level is like but if you feel up to it you might want to google some info about LNG tankers and safety zones around them.

There are some school districts MA that won't let their schools take field trips into Boston because of the LNG tankers.

Fall River had an LNG tanker site proposed and the Globe did a report on the effects of an accident. They had a map of the devastation area. Pretty chilling.

Last I knew in the U.S. there were only 3 or 4 LNG tanker sites near population areas.

[cardinal4]

"Jim Kalstrom, pick up the white courtesy phone, Jim Kalstrom..."

[BykrBayb]

July 8, 2004

http://www.projo.com/metro/content/projo_20040708_plng8.152c6a.html

[Semper911]

[Freedom of Speech Wins]

Know there was stormy weather in some of the Northeast tonight, not sure if it extended that far north, imagine it may have. Not taking a position here on whether it was lighting or not. Just stating that I believe there could have been bad weather at the time. I am sure we could check on the weather to try to provide a more accurate and factual picture than I have here.

[AlextheWise1]

watch the 1st video, lightning still striking behing the cloud of fire

[NonValueAdded]

"then we're stupid and we'll die"

[BykrBayb]

At this rate, I figure we'll be extinct by tomorrow.

[BykrBayb]

And if we're not, I'm going to have a lot of late fees on my bills.

[jeffers]

Once is happenstance, two times is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

848746563832932 times is Iran.

The balloon may be going up.

Read this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1668287/posts

Until I hear differently, all current and future incidents have a common source.

[William Tell]

EternalHope said: "Either something extremely unusual went wrong, ..."

I watched an episode of a series called "Seconds to Disaster" recently which dealt with a fire on an oil platform.

The total destruction of the platform required human error in handling maintenance chores and documentation as well as an unknown design defect and an inadvertant disabling of a safety feature. Without the confluence of all these factors, the incident might have been an unimportant small fire.

One of the self-defeating attitudes I have heard reported about the Space Shuttle Program is that the organization would use their past successess as indications that their safety processes were more than adequate. Consequently, they became bolder with time until finally they found out the limits of their processes and design.

[Semper911]

I believe there could have been bad weather at the time.

Yes, there has been severe thunderstorms here tonight, as stated in the thread above. The cause is most likely a lightning strike.

[GATOR NAVY]

There are some school districts MA that won't let their schools take field trips into Boston because of the LNG tankers.

That has got to be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Why don't they just hide under their beds all day.

[Darkwolf377]

Nah. If our soldiers can go to Iraq knowing someone's going to be shooting at them the least I can do is stand my ground back here in the good ol' USA where they'd like to be!

[thinkthenpost]

Venting shouldn't be a big problem, it'll just be a big torch. I said to myself when I first hit the thread what's the big deal it sucks, but let it burn out. Another poster brought up the big worry, if the tanker is cast adrift when the mooring line burns through and floats over and impacts the LNG tank then I wouldn't want to be in the same zip code, maybe area code.

[GAB-1955]

That's true, but there are actually many more chemicals the Coast Guard is concerned about than LNG or gasoline. This is bad, but it could be much, much worse. Gasoline is a known quantity.

Note: Each ship entering US waters must pass safety checks under the latest international agreements, including Safety of Life at Sea. This involves good machinery for firefighting.

If lightning caused the fire, I expect the regs to be modified nationwide: no gas offloading in thunderstorm weather.

[GAB-1955]

Nope, this isn't terrorism; the Coast Guard security checks are pretty good about this. There would have been a boarding party while the ship was out at harbor before docking and an inspection. This was an accident caused by bad weather.