Key Takeaways
- The Deer Park pipeline fire continues to burn due to residual natural gas in the pipeline after fuel valves were shut off.
- Residents near the fire are unable to return home until the fire is extinguished and the area is deemed safe.
- Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton emphasizes a phased approach: containment, extinguishing the fire, and then recovery and repair.
- The fire’s intensity is monitored through pipeline pressure, which has significantly decreased from 1400 PSI to between 20 and 30 PSI, indicating progress.
- CenterPoint Energy is prepared to restore power to homes once safety assessments are complete.
- The investigation into the SUV crash that caused the explosion and fire is halted until the fire is out.
DEER PARK, TX – An SUV appeared to lose its way in a WalMart parking lot Monday morning, driving into a gas valve and igniting an intense fire in the Deer Park, La Porte area. Even though the fuel valves on both sides of the fire had been shut off for more than 24 hours, the fire was still going Tuesday afternoon, burning off the natural liquid gas left inside the 20″ pipe.
People who live near the fire were not allowed back into their homes and the investigation into who was driving the car that hit that pipe’s valve was stalled until the fire was out and the area cool enough for investigators to safely approach the burned car nearby.
KPRC 2′s Bill Barajas took questions from viewers, and his own to Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton, Jr. on Tuesday.
Here is the full interview:
Bill Barajas: Talk to me a little bit, just about the last, I guess over 24 hours what you guys have been dealing with and where you guys are at right now.
Mayor Mouton: Well, there’s two phases to this narrative, and that’s the current narrative of the event that’s still occurring. So until that subsides and the fire goes out, then we will start a recovery process. So in so many words, we’re kind of in a hold pattern in regards to making sure we keep everything contained to to the area that it is. Once all the product has been relieved out of that pipeline and the fire goes out, then the next phase of recovery will start.
There’s a lot of staging that has occurred, whether it be from the pipeline industry, bringing in people, getting ready to do the repairs and or CenterPoint, which was probably the biggest thing we’ll be dealing with once the fire goes out, is getting power restored to as many or all the homes that are available to accept the power at that time.
Bill Barajas: Any idea on the timeline for how long that might take?
Mayor Mouton: Where we’re all waiting on the fire. So there’s been guesstimates. Right now, we’re again, still in a hold pattern. I would sooner the better for the fire goes out, but really, we can’t do a whole lot until the fire goes out.
Bill Barajas: Talk to us about the fire right now. We’ve been sort of chatting about it. I was out here yesterday. You guys had eyes on it yesterday. It has gone down significantly. Talk to me about where it’s at right now and what you guys expect in the next few hours.
Mayor Mouton: One of the parameters that they’re giving us engaging in is just watching the PSI or the pressure in the pipeline itself, and it’s down to between 20 and 30 PSI. So, again, you know, every hour on the hour, it’s reducing and then that’s good.
And they’ve made additional steps where they’ve added some temporary flares along that corridor to help relieve the pressure on that deal. And once it reaches a certain point, they’re going to go in and start making the immediate repairs that need to occur.
Bill Barajas: You just mentioned that the PSI talked to us about where it was at yesterday compared to today.
Mayor Mouton: Well the original static PSI was around 1,400 pounds. So it’s made a significant difference as soon as they shut it off. But even this morning, in talking to some of the personnel from energy transfer, it was about 80. So from 8:00 till now it’s drop 50 pounds. So that’s good in reality. So again, every hour on the hour, it’s getting less and less and closer to to whenever that fire does go out.
Then CenterPoint, which is staged in the area, they’ve got a plan to get as many homes that can take power back on. And whether it be this afternoon or as late as tomorrow. And then that’s when a lot of the people that are displaced can get back in.
Harris County pollution control, as well as Hazmat and a number of agencies are on standby to make sure they go in and check all the structures in proximity to make sure they’re safe before all the power is turned back on and make sure we don’t have some reoccurring secondary occurrence of the narratives.
But everything is in place right now and we’re just in a hold pattern of wait for the fire to go out.
Bill Barajas: Once the fire’s out, whenever that might happen before you guys give the okay for folks to get back into their homes, is that something that’s done right away or is that something that, like you said, you have the TCQ...
Mayor Mouton: They’re waiting right now on location to get in there as quickly as that can be assessed. Then CenterPoint can move in and get power restored. Most of the power outage in Deer Park, I think yesterday they restored over 500 homes or residents power. So there is a little over 300 left today with about a significant portion over 200 plus or in Deer Park. And most of them are in that East Meadows subdivision. So hopefully the the northern corridor of that, which has very little impact, will be restored very quickly. And CenterPoint’s working on that right now to make sure they get that on as quickly as possible.
Bill Barajas: But how quickly once the fire’s out, will you give folks the okay to get in? Is that done right away or is that like, hey, wait, the fire’s out, but now we have to go in there and make...
Mayor Mouton: The process will occur as quickly as possible. Yeah, I know the timeline, but it all starts as soon as the fire goes out. It would be foolish to me to give you a specific timeline of how quickly people could get back in their homes.
The main reason people will not be able to get back in homes to any extent is mainly because it’s not going to have any power. And even then. So I know we’ve shrunk the parameters. It was being assessed even late yesterday, even in regards to people that could get back to their homes has already started occurring. And even today, most of the people that were evacuated from like Wal-Mart, have been allowed to go back in and get their cars and personal items as well. So all that’s occurring as we speak.
Bill Barajas: Deer Park P.D. takes the lead in this investigation. Talk to us a little bit about how that all works. The big question right now is that vehicle that crashed into the pipeline.
Mayor Mouton: Yeah, Well, the vehicle is obviously there. I mean, we’ve acknowledged that the investigation is is ongoing. And right now, the only hold up is once the fire gets out, then the P.D. will be able to get access to that and start connecting the dots and trying to create a narrative of what actually occurred.
So, yeah, there won’t be any comments coming from me on that. It’s an active investigation. And just a little bit earlier, you know, I know the P.D. is out there waiting for the fire to go out as well. So that can be one of the top primary things they get on as well simultaneously as everything else that’s going to be occurring.
Bill Barajas: And does the P.D. have partners in this? I know that the FBI had been called out at some point. Is this a joint investigation or is this Deer Park P.D.?
Mayor Mouton: It’s 100% Deer Park P.D. investigation. The FBI was consulted on some narratives yesterday, but they are not here at the scene at this moment. But they’re just a phone call away if we need them. But I think for all intents and purposes, this is a 100% Deer Park Police Department investigation.
Bill Barajas: Talk to us about the response as a whole, how you felt about it as a mayor, your guys, your firefighters and police officers working around the clock?
Mayor Mouton: Well, this is a regional impact narrative that most of us understand. These situations can occur and will occur in the future. I am always blessed and pleasantly surprised to see the collaboration from all the agencies come together. And it’s just across the board, whether it be the state agency sending people, the county, sending people, all the local partnering agencies coming together. We even got a call yesterday from the White House just asking, did we did we need any resources? But in reality, it’s just managing the resources once they’re here. And it’s tremendous to see the multiple agencies come together, specifically Pasadena,Deer Park and La Porte has run this as kind of a joint to the unified command narrative, with the lead being the Deer Park Fire Department. But it’s always nice to go out there and just see the array of agencies represented in different departments there. I saw one yesterday from Webster, and so you get an array of different ones. They’re all part of the response, whether it be initial or secondary or just rotating through. And it’s just part of that arena -- first responders doing what needs to be done to help mitigate any re-occurrence.
Bill Barajas: On top of that. You mentioned the firefighters. There were some injuries. And then talk to us about the damage to homes. How many homes you guys estimate?
Mayor Mouton: Yeah, I don’t know a whole lot of specifics on injuries. I know most of the ones I was informed about was just the firemen and that was heat exhaustion or just dealing with needing to be rotated out. I know in the early stages yesterday, the the heat was very intense. So I just imagine being in a normal context of a fire and then having it magnified times ten regards to how hot it was.
I’ve seen evidence or pictures of vehicles across the road where all the plastic on it was just melted because of the intensity of the heat. So it was hot and they were they’re putting their life at risk trying to save property. And we all saw the videos of them spraying them homes nonstop to try to keep them from being more damaged than what they currently are.
Bill Barajas: You mentioned a call from the White House. Is that from the president himself?
Mayor Mouton: No, the president didn’t call, but one of the departments that would deal in any kind of emergency response. But in most cases, the agencies deal with the state and send it through the state officials. And of course, we’ve had the governor call it specifically and I spoke to him yesterday, but the dome, the emergency response division for the state is very much here and offering any assistance they can. But when it’s all said and done, you know, it’s a local response and it’s been highly effective. And of course, again, in this region, most of our firemen are industry based, whether they be direct employees or not. So there’s a vast amount of experience on how to deal with these type of situations. And it just time and time again is proven that they’re highly qualified. And I would put our responses in this region up against anybody.
Bill Barajas: You’ve been mayor for about 12 years. The people of Deer Park know who you are. They look to you for when something like this happens. What would you say to them right now if they’re they’ve maybe had damage to their cars, if there is damage to their homes? What would you say to them right now?
Mayor Mouton: Well, you know, we put the steps in place and some of it’s been what we put out yesterday with having the hotline to call for more energy transfer. So, you know, the short-term narrative of needs that need to be addressed and all of them are being addressed. And the long-term process is, you know, there are some of these damaged facilities and or vehicles, however you want to put it. It’s just going to take a little bit of time and there’s a process to work through. But as in every other instance over my last 12 years, we will come through this and recover and we’ll get back to normal as quickly as possible.
Bill Barajas: There was a food truck set up at the San Jacinto College campus. And they were kind of stopped by. We saw them setting up and asked them what they were doing and they said they were just going to try to feed emergency responders. Said they had about 150 meals. Talk to us about community coming together.
Mayor Mouton: It’s incredible to see the response. I went last night, I don’t know 8 or 9:00 and it was just different stores and franchises. I know one lady walked up from Starbucks and she had her hands full of just bags and just bringing anything that she could. And there was a table over there and she put it over there. And it’s just amazing to see all the different partnerships and mainly the restaurants showing up with food to make sure all these responders have any and everything they need. So there’s never a shortage of that kind of generosity that I see our community doing, which is what makes my heart proud to see how the compassion that in time of need, you know, it’s just time to show up. And people do. And it’s what I love about this community.
Bill Barajas: Can you also touch on when you have something like this happen you don’t want you don’t want it to ever happen, But there’s lessons learned in situations like this, right? Talk to us about that a little bit. The takeaways that you might take.
Mayor Mouton: I would say in life, I’d say it this way every day we should all ask the question, what can we do better today than we did yesterday? And the unfortunate aspect of learning lessons, it’s limited to the last event or narrative that we go through. In many instances, we are running into scenarios where we’ve not seen a narrative occur like this.
So in some cases you’re figuring out for the first time, but there’s always best practices that come out of it. And in this particular case, it’s it’s industry-related pipelines. And I over my years have seen nothing but the best effort of if we can do it better than than we will. And every time you go through something like this, you learn of what you need to mitigate. And I’ve seen evidence time after. Time after time again of that occurring. You know, industry’s a big part of this region. It’s a big part of our economy. It’s the engine that makes Texas go. And Texas is the economic engine that really fuels the whole U.S. continent in regards to how things work. And so I’m proud to be here. And it’s just part of this region. But yes, we will always ask questions of can we do this better? And we’ll learn our lessons and we’ll move forward. And while we’ve been in communication with energy transfer, but again, you know, we’re getting back to what we started out. This is still an ongoing active event and our focus is on that. So once we start the recovery process, which will occur about when the fire goes out, then all of them questions whether that be in regards to how this occurred. The investigation is going on, will be answered and there’ll be reports that come out and in some aspects of communicating with state and federal officials. Yeah, there’s always already in the interest of in regards to you know, this is this is just a legislative narrative that needs to be fixed or this industry into itself, which I see it time and time again.
You know, there’s best practices that in some cases they assume that responsibility. That’s not always an item that needs to be addressed legislatively is just best practices. I mean, it’s good for everybody when it works well and it’s done safe. And that’s what we’re all advocating for. And I see nothing but the best effort of trying to do that because we’ve proven it in this region. I mean, it’s much better than it’s ever been in regards to how all this do this works and it will continue to get better.