MEDFORD, MASS. (WHDH) - Hazmat crews were called to a home
in Medford Monday after an oil delivery driver dumped 383 gallons of heating
oil into a home that had a fill pipe but no oil tank, according to officials.
Officials said the Fawcett Oil delivery driver went to the
right address, but in the wrong city. Instead of going to 48 Linwood Street in
Malden, he went to 48 Linwood Street in Medford.
Fire officials said the driver attached the hose to the
fillup pipe on the side of the house, but that pipe was not connected to any
oil tanks — so 383 gallons of oil ended up in the home’s basement.
“Oil delivery driver pulled up to the wrong address,” said
Medford Deputy Fire Chief Nick Davis. “Put 385 gallons of oil into a basement
with no oil tank.”
Residents of the two family home quickly evacuated and the
area was sealed off.
“It smelled very bad,” said Dang Nguyen, the homeowner.
“Even, you know, I’m living in the second floor and I smell. I came home and
came in to drop something off and it smelled very bad.”
Crews began cleanup using shovels and speedy dry. They first
tried to contain then remove the oil with the Department of Environmental
Protection on the scene.
Fawcett Oil hung up on 7NEWS during a request for comment.
Six people are now without a place to live as the home is
currently deemed unsafe. There is no timeline for when they will be able to
return.
Interesting coincidence that a New England "community" has both Dang Nguyen and a delivery driver who doesn't know what town he's in.
ReplyDeleteThis is a more common occurrence than one would suspect. It usually happens after a house converts from oil to gas and fails to remove the fill pipe to the Basement oil tank. The homeowner then Forget to tell the oil company to stop delivery, or the oil company disregards the directive. And it takes close to a year for the smell of number two oil to disappear.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but think that this may be just another dismal and expected result of the D.E.I. "solution" to everything. Since neither the genetic background of the driver was mentioned, nor or his/her/its ability to read and comprehend English, I remain insufficiently informed to make a reasonable conclusion about this clusterfuck.
ReplyDeleteHow many viet cong can live in one home in mass?
ReplyDeleteDang, that sucks!
ReplyDelete-lg
In August 2008 a homeowner contacted me about a diesel smell in his $2MM house. To make a long story short, a contractor left heating oil in two USTs and shoveled dirt in to "absorb" it. A 2-story addition weas built over the tanks by ther former owner. Heavy rains over that summer flushed the oil out. Final remediation & rebuild cost was $380K. Owner had an environmental rider on his homeowner's, so he didn't pay a dime. Almost bankrupted the contractor.
ReplyDeleteSix people without a home is much better than six people died because of an explosion in the basement. The oil company's insurance will make things better; maybe not right but better. Celebrate the lives not lost.
ReplyDeleteA place I worked at some years ago was right behind a large gas station that also dispensed #2 fuel oil for their home delivery trucks. I saw one of the trucks pull up and the driver attach the fill hose to the top of the tank. THEN he walked away which is strictly against the law. The driver or fill operator is supposed remain with tanker being filled to ensure that an overfill and fuel dump does not occur. Needless to say, the tanker truck overfilled and the oil was knee deep in the containment moat before he got back to shut off the oil. Good thing the station was designed with a containment moat, other wise all of that oil would have beeen inside the business where I worked. If I remember correctly the spill was in excess of 500 gallons.
ReplyDeleteAnother time at another gas station a gasoline tanker pulled in to fill one of the underground tanks. Driver attached the fill hose to the underground tank inlet walked over to the fill controls activated them and walked away, not checking to see that the hose remained attached to fill inlet. Needless to say, there was 20-50 gallons on the ground before the guy was able to scramble back to the controls after I yelled at him. I also called the cops and dispatch also sent the fire dept. Haz Mat shut the station down until the spill had been cleaned up which included having several feet topsoil removed from an adjacent lot and replaced.
Nemo
A road flare will go a long way to cleaning up the mess...
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'.
Why were the fill pipes.left. Back in the sixties my parent oil fired furnace was replaced with gas. Two oil tanks removed along with fill pipes.
ReplyDeleteWe don' need no steenkin' HazMat!
ReplyDeleteWe had about 30 gallons of fuel oil left in the tank in the house's basement after we switched to heating with natural gas. Dad eventually decided to cut up the tank and haul it outside. What about the remaining oil? Simple: he hooked up some piping and an air compressor to pressurize the tank, intending to pump it up and out to the container on the front lawn. He turned on the compressor and, while waiting for pressure to build, went upstairs to watch Gunsmoke. Fuel oil tanks evidently aren't designed to be pressurized. KA-BOOM! A seam let loose. Oops.
Dad quickly re-routed the sump pump hose to kill grass instead of the septic tank and we sloshed around shoeless in stinky oil using booms to herd oil into the sump pit. Fun times. House smelled funny for quite a while and the grass took forever to recover. I presume Matt Dillon got the bad guy.