Posted on 02/28/2002 5:47:54 AM PST by dubyaweluvya
Bomb Is Suspected In Outage
Federal agents are investigating the possibility that an electrical outage at a Utah Power relay station on the final day of the Winter Games was caused by an explosive device. State and federal authorities are looking at whether explosives wrapped in railroad spikes hurled shrapnel upward, shattering a circuit breaker. Railroad spikes were found at the substation near Salt Lake City International Airport, but officials have not settled the question of whether the explosion was a result of faulty equipment, vandalism or terrorism, The Salt Lake Tribune has learned.
Material taken from the scene was being analyzed at a federal crime lab Tuesday for explosive residue.
Utah Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen would not comment on whether a bomb had caused the Sunday outage. He said security around the substation, at 4800 W. 700 South, had been beefed up for the Games. He declined to be more specific.
"This is under investigation by the FBI and ATF and we don't want to say anything to compromise their investigation," Eskelsen said Tuesday.
The Olympic Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating the incident.
The explosion caused a power outage that left 33,000 homes in Salt Lake, Davis and Tooele counties without power for nearly an hour and later sparked a fire at the Tesoro oil refinery in North Salt Lake.
The outage occurred shortly after 10 a.m., eight hours before the Olympics Closing Ceremony at Rice-Eccles Stadium, and officials quickly traced the problem to a circuit breaker failure at the substation.
During the power outage, the airport ran on generators for a time, but flight operations were not affected.
The Tesoro fire broke out when workers attempted to restart equipment following the outage. Officials said a relief valve carried oil-soaked material to a catalytic converter, which converts crude oil into gasoline.
The material ignited when it hit the 1,300-degree converter, officials said. As firefighters battled the blaze, a second fire erupted, sending a thick black plume of smoke skyward that blocked driver visibility on Interstate 15, shutting down the freeway for about a half hour.
mvigh@sltrib.com
Tribune reporter Kevin Cantera contributed to this report. <
What else happened at Salt Lake that the mainstream media wasn't aware of?
But the anti-WTO wackos are after offending everyone. They're totally nihilist.
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