Investigative Study: Public Safety at Oil and Gas Storage Facilities

On October 31, 2009, two teenagers, aged 16 and 18, were killed when a petroleum storage tank exploded in a rural oil field in Carnes, Mississippi. Six months later a group of youths were exploring a similar tank site in Weleetka, Oklahoma, when an explosion and fire fatally injured one individual. Two weeks later, a 25-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman were on top of an oil tank in rural New London, Texas, when the tank exploded, killing the woman and seriously injuring the man. In April 2010, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) initiated an investigation into the root causes of these tragic incidents. All three incidents involved rural unmanned oil and gas storage sites that lacked fencing and signs warning of the hazards, which might have otherwise deterred members of the public from using them as places to gather.