One Killed, 15 Hurt as Steam Line Ruptures at Power Plant in Nevada

At least one person was killed and 15 others were injured Sunday when a high-pressure steam line exploded at Southern California Edison’s coal-fired Mohave Generating Plant in Laughlin, Nev., 90 miles south of Las Vegas.

The control room of the 1,500-megawatt facility was destroyed by the blast, Edison spokesman Charles Beal said in Los Angeles, and both of the plant’s generating units were shut down.

“The control room looks like a bomb hit it,” said plant manager Stan Heard. “It’s devastating.”

The dead man was identified as Danny Norman, 30, of Riviera, Ariz., an equipment operator.

Emergency Treatment at Scene

Names of the surviving victims, all employees at the plant, were withheld pending notification of their families. Beal said all the victims received emergency treatment at the scene before being transferred by helicopter to various hospitals.

Edison spokesman Bob Hull said the explosion destroyed the control room of the plant, which was built in 1971 and provides electricity to about 1.6 million people in California and Nevada.

The plant’s two 750-megawatt generating units shut down immediately, he said, but the power grid automatically shifted to take over and there was only a “momentary blip” instead of a true power failure.

The two people most seriously injured--a man and a woman--were moved immediately by helicopter to the burn ward at Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital in Las Vegas.

Two more victims were taken by ambulance across the Colorado River and along the 20 miles of winding mountain road to Bullhead City, Ariz., where Bullhead Community Hospital administrator Mark Monaco said they were admitted for treatment of first-degree burns. Hospital authorities said these two were in fair condition six hours later.

Two airplanes and four Flight for Life helicopters--including two rushed to the scene from Long Beach--were used to move 10 others first to Bullhead City for initial treatment and then to Southern Nevada Memorial, where administrator Joe Denny said it was the worst disaster his hospital had seen since the Las Vegas Hilton fire of 1983 in which 8 people died and dozens were injured.

Denny said 11 men and one woman were brought to Southern Nevada’s burn ward Sunday. All, he said, were in critical condition with second- and third-degree burns over 25% to 80% of their bodies.

Assistance in Breathing

He said eight victims needed ventilators to assist their breathing because of respiratory injuries, and two others would probably need such assistance soon. Hospital authorities sent runners to other medical facilities in Las Vegas to obtain medications and other supplies needed for critical burn treatment.

One other victim was airlifted to Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, where he was reported in critical condition.

Edison spokesman Stan Cann said technical experts from the firm’s Rosemead headquarters in California were immediately dispatched to the Mohave plant. Cause of the explosion was under investigation, he said, but it may take weeks to find out why the pipe burst.

Cann said the blast occurred at 3:25 p.m., when a 30-inch steel “reheat” pipe carrying 1,000-degree steam at a pressure of 600 pounds-per-square-inch suddenly ruptured.

Only about 35 of the plant’s 450-member work force were on duty at the time of the blast, Hull said, and of these 20 appeared to have been in the control room.

“We were fortunate that this happened at relief time at our 24-hour plant,” said plant manager Heard. “The day shift had gone home and the swing shift was coming on. And on weekends we have a skeleton staff.”

Dart Craytor, a Bullhead City firefighter called to the scene, said some of the plant employees he talked to told him they “saw the explosion coming and ducked behind desks.”

Others he said “were able to run away and escape.”

Craytor said some employees also told him they had been careful not to inhale the steam, while others who did so had sustained internal burns.

In California, however, Edison spokesman Hull expressed reservations concerning this, saying he couldn’t see how the explosion could have been anticipated.

Laughlin is a tiny gambling resort in the corner of Nevada’s southeast wedge, with a population of about 2,500 that usually grows to 70,000 or more on weekends.

The town has seven hotel-casinos overlooking the river, and the explosion was heard and felt throughout the town.

But residents said no one paid much attention.

Resort owner Don Laughlin, who founded the town 18 years ago, said he didn’t hear the explosion himself, but watched from his suite atop his hotel-casino as “a steady stream of ambulances carried the injured across the (Davis) dam” to evacuation airplanes and helicopters at Bullhead City Airport.

“And the weekend crowd never noticed,” blackjack dealer T. J. Wojac said. “The games went right on without a bobble. . . .”