2nd Orange County Man Dies, Raising Arco Blast Toll to 3

A third victim of the fire at the Atlantic Richfield Co. refinery in Carson died Friday as authorities tentatively tagged weakness in a pipe as the cause of the explosive blaze.

The dead were identified as Stanley Lawrence, 29, of Westminster; Steve Snider, 20, of Stanton, and Luther Booth, who was in his 50s, of Harbor City, according to hospital and industry sources.

The fire, which injured another 44, was the worst refinery blaze in terms of injuries in Los Angeles County in more than 20 years, fire officials said.

Lawrence, a construction worker for Houston-based Brown & Root USA Inc., which is building a desulfurization unit at the refinery, died at 8:12 a.m. Friday of burns of his upper body and internal organs, a spokesman for the Memorial Hospital Medical Center in Long Beach said. Snider and Booth, both Arco employees, died in the blast.

Still in Training

Snider had begun working at the Carson plant in August and was still in training, a family friend said. Booth was due to retire within two weeks, an industry source said. The two Arco employees were operating the $20-million Reformer Unit No. 1 at 9:48 a.m. Thursday when it exploded.

The unit--a sprawling maze of pipes and machinery standing several stories high--converts low-octane gasoline into high-octane unleaded fuel. It has a capacity of 17,000 barrels a day, most of which is sold in Southern California. Arco said it should be operational again in a month.

Los Angeles County Fire Capt. John Maleta said investigators believe a weak feeder pipe blew under heavier than normal pressure, releasing a hot naphtha-hydrogen mixture that exploded.

The explosion occurred as the unit was being brought back on line after a week of routine repairs to a compressor, Arco spokesman Bill Arledge said.

Five to 10 minutes before the blast, the pressure in the pipe, normally between 650 to 675 pounds per square inch, began to climb, Maleta said. Inside the pipe, the mixture was at a temperature of 215 to 230 degrees. The pressure reached 800 psi just before the explosion, he said.

“From all indications, the pipe went shortly thereafter,” said Maleta, the Fire Department’s top expert in hazardous materials. “It is unknown why there was an increase in pressure.”

Maleta said pipes are tested annually at pressures 50% greater than the normal. The pipe that apparently blew Thursday held up during its annual test in April at close to 1,000 psi, he said.

“It should have held. Metallurgists are going to be analyzing all the pipe,” he said.

Good Safety Record

Maleta said the Arco refinery has a good safety record. Fire Department records show at least 18 emergency incidents there from 1977 through Thursday’s explosion--most of them minor and without injury or major damage. The worst incident was an explosion Oct. 2 that occurred because Arco failed to purge a waste-gas combustion unit before starting it. One worker was hospitalized and several others suffered minor injuries.

Records of the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration show that Arco was issued two safety citations after the incident. The petroleum company is appealing a resulting $700 fine for failing to purge the chamber of gas. Arco agreed to comply with Cal-OSHA’s order to remedy equipment and employee training deficiencies, said Richard Stephens of the state Department of Industrial Relations.