Posted on 12/31/2009 7:40:44 PM PST by Ladycalif
Updated 2:43 PM PST, Thu, Dec 31, 2009
Gang task force members in Hemet are lucky to alive Thursday after they noticed their office was flooded with natural gas in an apparently deliberate attempt to cause a deadly explosion, police said.
"It was basically designed so that once somebody came in and moved around a little bit, it would have gone off," said Hemet police Lt. Duane Wisehart. "At the very least, it would have leveled the building and killed whoever was inside."
Wisehart told the Southwest Riverside News Network that there is no doubt the trap was meant for members of the Hemet/San Jacinto Valley Gang Task Force.
Officers arriving for work were saved by their instincts."They were able to recognize right away that something was wrong," Wisehart told the North County Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbclosangeles.com ...
The story doesn’t really describe what was “rigged.” Was is just a gas leak?
But where is the drama, the first cop smells gas, tells all the union employees to not go in, he turns off the meter as everyone in earthquake country knows how to do (the wrench is usually chained to the meter) and they wait for the plumber to show up.
Pulled into Hemet at 3AM after a 10hr drive
from NorCal. Got a room and was up and on my way
to pick up a kid to take back to a NorCal group
home by 9:30AM. This was a couple of summers
ago.
What I can’t understand is within the vast
area of what the SoCalers refer to as the
Inland Empire with countless communities
and millions of people why would anybody
be interested in wiping out a gang task
force in a podunk town like Hemet? What
about Riverside, San Bernardino, Redlands?
If Hemet is ground zero I hope I don’t
ever have to go back.........
You are wrong by the way, this is natural gas, not propane, natural gas wants to get away, not puddle, and it stinks to high heaven.
Gas pip fitters don’t like being called plumbers. REALLY don’t like it. Fighting words.
Natural gas is mostly methane, lighter than air, and it is somewhat difficult to blow up a building with it. Propane on the other hand is heavier than air, fills basements and crawl spaces, and then blows the building to flinders. I’ve been looking for a chance to use flinders in a sentence.
The helmet itself didn't explode, the building inside the helmet exploded. It was rigged that way.
Can't you read?
Gang Task Force headquarters?
Sounds like it could have been a script for “The Shield”.
Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to have been within two blocks. The drama is anything including a cell phone or static electric discharge in the area could mean BOOM. You also have floor drains etc to consider which in some areas run outside or underneath buildings into the city storm drain system. As I said gas naturally lays low. Something as simple as weather conditions can mean more so.
Now it is a hellhole
I used to fly out to Hemet years ago when I was taking flying lessons out of Long Beach. Not much out there.
No, natural gas does not lay low, it is lighter than air and tries to escape, it wants out, it does not puddle and settle into floor drains and basements and under buildings, even under a house that has had a long term gas leak (natural gas), it always escapes through the vents and openings, it takes an effort to trap it.
I worked in the building next door to the business of a nutjob who had rigged it to blow up by opening the gas valves or whatever and setting up candles I think it was. Then he went and killed his family and his dog, drove out of town and eventually shot himself when the cops started to catch up with him. The cops said if he had been successful it would have taken out his building plus ours and the one on the other side at least. These were pretty old buildings. They evacuated the whole block if I recall correctly. I couldn’t start my car (parked on the street), they wouldn’t let anybody do anything.
I own a repair plumbing business and run and repair gas lines and appliances, trace leaks, etc., I am the guy that ran all that gas to your boiler and the entire building, and the guy that will handle the repairs over the life of the building.
So was the home that blew up. It was on city NG service. Many things including barometric pressure determine how fast it rises, if it rises, or if it concentrates in lower areas.
A hydrogen bomb without a nuclear explosion.
I don’t get your point, we all know that natural gas can explode if confined and ignited.
But natural gas does not puddle, it wants to dissipate, you keep talking about it as though it is propane, natural gas will seek an escape, propane wants to stay in place if it can.
A couple buildings blow up from natural gas leaks each year in Wisconsin. I’ve seen the aftermath. One destroyed three houses and broke windows half a mile away.
Modern buildings are quite well sealed and keep the gas trapped until it’s set off.
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