Spring/Summer 2000 One Year Later

Spring/Summer 2000 - One Year Later

Flash Point
by Andrew Linth

People in Bellingham remember the day Olympic’s pipeline exploded the way people a generation ago remember the day an assassin’s bullet killed President John F. Kennedy. The pipeline explosion rocked the community and blistered the land. Some heard of the disaster on the evening news. Others, however, heard it firsthand. An entire business community on Iowa Street felt the shock as their usual work-place security shattered. Here are some of their stories:

Guy Abbott: Bellingham Chrysler

"I was just standing outside. Police and firefighters were running up and down the street. There was something in the air. You could feel it. Something wasn’t quite right. We could see up the road that they were blocking off traffic. Maybe this was something they planned to do as a precautionary measure for a job that had to be done.

"All of the sudden the explosion went off. A ball of flame came up seconds later. It was mass pandemonium. Once the fuel lit and burnt there wasn’t much anybody could do, but wait for it to finish burning.

"The flame came down the creek and surrounded us for a second. I was running in to our office during the concussion. It bowed the windows and forced me through the doors into the building.

"Immediately afterwards the police told us to evacuate the place. They didn’t even know what was going on. It was very traumatic.

"The first 10 or 20 minutes we were flying by the seat of our pants as to what exactly happened. I live on St. Claire Street so I was very concerned about what was going on at my house. I panicked for my family. I knew at that point it was going to be ugly.

"At 8 p.m. my sister called my family and told us about the tragedy. The King and Tsiorvas families are all people we know. Liam Wood was a friend of my son’s and was supposed to go out with him that night.

"We can replace a lot of things and we can fix a lot of things, but we can’t fix what happened to those kids and their families. They were all exceptionally good kids. We don’t ever want to go through something like that again."

Mark Allaway: Cruisin Coffee

"There weren’t any customers, so I was cleaning up. All of the sudden, the building shook. I thought it was an earthquake. It sounded just like thunder during a storm.

"I looked and saw a big poof of black smoke and a wall of fire as high as the trees. Then I thought it was a bomb, or maybe construction and someone had hit something.

"I stopped and wondered what I was going to do. The traffic immediately gridlocked. People just stopped and watched the curtain of fire go up and down the creek.

"A policeman on a motorcycle was evacuating everyone telling them to get out. A guy said something about a gas main under the road and that caused a little panic.

"I locked up everything and high-tailed it out of there. Being on foot was lucky because the cars weren’t moving at all. The explosion was massively frightening."

Don Buys: Vacation Land RV Sales

"I was checking on an RV in front of our shop and I heard an explosion. I ran out towards the road to see if it was right in front of the shop. I saw a lot of the black smoke coming and I thought ‘What in the world is this?’

"I didn’t know if a building had blown up or if an airplane crashed. It was scary. All of the sudden a ball of smoke and flame was coming right at us. It looked like it was heading straight for us.

"I didn’t know it was in the creek. I thought it was bombs, an airplane crash and all kinds of weird things. I saw it coming and I was afraid of our propane tank, so I immediately hollered into the shop and told everyone ‘Evacuate the building!’

"We all ran to the street. The police cars were very prompt. They said it was some kind of an oil spill, which didn’t tell us much. By the time we got to the road we saw the flames go right by the back of our shop. It was scary.

"I definitely panicked, especially because I didn’t know what it was. I thought, ‘If our propane tank goes up in flames, that’s it.’ I am generally very protective of our inventory, but I let go and decided that we should run for our lives.

"Once the fire went by I immediately went back to the fence. The 25-feet of trees between my fence and the creek absorbed most of the heat, protecting my inventory. I hope that they take care of the pipeline because we can’t do without it. They have to take every safety precaution they can."

Jeff Cyr: Gold’s Gym

"I was working behind the front desk and had only been at the gym about 10 minutes. I heard a humongous explosion and it rattled the whole building. That was the initial explosion.

"A second explosion happened a few seconds after that and everyone started freaking out. People started trailing out of the gym really fast. It was mayhem immediately.

"I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on. Some people started screaming about a gas leak and asked if we had gas heating. I said yes. Then somebody said, ‘GAS, this place is going to blow’ and people started panicking.

"I had to make sure the locker rooms, tanning booths, and day care were all cleared out. The people in the day care did a really good job of clearing that place out.

"A lot of people got in their cars and drove off. The parking lot was pretty full so there were a few accidents. Most people just left their cars or started running down the road.

"I stepped outside the building to see what was going on. I saw a humongous pile of smoke billowing up. I thought the gym was going to be engulfed in flames. I didn’t know if the fire was going to run right behind the gym.

"I went back in with two members and made one more round to make sure everyone was out of the gym. They were really good about helping clear the building out.

"One of the employees who was just getting off and worked the shift before me had a kid in the daycare and couldn’t find her. She was very afraid. So we made one more round.

"At that point I was really scared because I had been outside and seen the smoke coming. I thought the gym could go up in flames at any moment. Everyone was out of the gym at that point so I locked the doors.

"I got in my car at the corner of the gym and I could see the smoke piled up all behind the gym and the flames were coming around the sides. They were probably 50 feet away from me at that point. I thought that maybe I should leave my car and go. I was very panicked at that point. Everything was touch and go.

"I picked up Leah, the lady with the missing daughter, and a member who had just left their car in the parking lot. I picked them up out in the middle of the road. Somebody across the street who worked across the street had picked up her daughter and she was waiting in the truck.

"The traffic was just crazy. The roads were filled up with cars and most people had just abandoned their cars at that point. All of Iowa Street was mostly cars that had nobody in them. So we went up through some parking lots and ended up finding a way out. Traffic was horrible. It took about 35 minutes to get across town to Builder Alliance where Leah’s husband worked. I dropped the people off there.

"I called my mom because she had been watching the news and she was worried. So I let her know I was all right.

"It was total mayhem. I drove away and remember looking back at the gym thinking ‘Wow, that place isn’t going to be there tomorrow when I have to go to work.’"

Mike Dougan: Diehl Ford

"Prior to the explosion I was sitting in my office. It was a nice summer day. The showroom, being glass, just started to shake. It shook two or three times. We ran out to see what it was. We could see a lot of smoke and debris in the air. A couple minutes after that you could see it coming this way.

"A couple guys said that whatever it is it is coming down the creek. We know a lot of guys that work on Iowa Street so we figured someone probably got hurt. Shortly after that you could see the flames reaching as high as the trees. At first I thought it was one of the other car dealerships.

"It was just huge. It was something you could never really imagine. The smoke was really high and fast. We didn’t really worry about the inventory so much as hoping that nobody got hurt.

"Shortly after that the Bellingham police told us to evacuate the building because there was fire coming down the creek. We didn’t know it was a fuel line.

"We have almost 100 people working here so everyone took off running or left in their cars. Things were pretty organized.

"The next day black ash and dead fish filled the creek."

Carey Ross: Der Hamster

"I was listening to KUGS and I heard there was some kind of explosion. So I went outside and saw the big smoke plume. So we decided to go check it out.

"We initially thought a gas station had blown up. I knew they were pulling tanks at the BP on the corner. There wasn’t a huge emergency response yet because we got down there before they could get there. It was something of such magnitude that there was sort of a little bit of scrambling before everyone really knew what was going on.

"The street was closed off right after we had gotten there. I was on a cell phone trying to get some news but I couldn’t get through. I’m guessing the lines were jammed with emergency calls.

"The thing that struck me was that it was very quiet – no traffic. Once I got down closer to the creek it got especially quiet, no birds, no nothing. It was just quiet-quiet-quiet. The only thing I could hear was the water and the crackling of the fire. I could certainly smell it.

"There was just wild stuff happening. I got down there and wandered around for a little bit and everything was still pretty much on fire. I sort of had the sudden realization that it could have been a fairly dangerous situation I was entering into … It was totally overwhelming.’

Todd Smith: Wallen Insurance, Inc.

"I was sitting at my computer and the lights flickered a couple times. A few minutes later there was a crowd of people out in the parking lot and they were looking up at the sky.

"It was like it was right out of the movie Superman. I went outside looked up and could see the smoke billowing. I thought it was Wholesale Auto Parts burning. All I could see was flames and smoke. I didn’t know it was all the way up the creek at the time.

"Things started to get a little bit hectic around here. A person on a bicycle was going around telling everyone to get out of here, meanwhile my wife called. We live on Alabama Hill. She was standing in our backyard and thought it was the neighbors’ house burning below ours.

"She grabbed our scanner and heard that they were evacuating the creek all the way to the bay. She told me to get out of my office, and get out of there now. I ran around and told everyone to get out.

"At this point I was totally panicked. We couldn’t get out. Everyone was going towards the explosion.

"It was unbelievable. The fire was a curious attraction. It caused stress and panic. Once I was out, I just wanted to get home.

Spring/Summer 2000 - One Year Later

Flash Point by Andrew Linth

Flash Point
by Andrew Linth