5 Injured in Blast at Sewage Plant
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An electrical explosion and fire ripped through a power supply building at a Huntington Beach sewage treatment plant Tuesday, injuring five workers, one seriously.
Five workers were upgrading a 12,000-volt electrical service center vault about 7:20 a.m. when the blast occurred, Orange County Sanitation District officials said. The vault distributes power to the sanitation district facility on Brookhurst Street near Pacific Coast Highway.
Marc Posey, 49, of San Diego was attempting to connect wires to a system that apparently had not been shut down, officials said. There was a flash and a flame and Posey’s clothes caught fire, according to reports.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated by the sanitation district and Cal-OSHA.
Posey, who suffered third-degree burns over 90% of his body, was taken by helicopter within a half an hour to the Grossman Burn Center at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana. He was listed in critical but stable condition.
Another worker, Roger Webb, 60, suffered second- and third-degree burns over 6% of his body.
Both men are scheduled to undergo surgery Thursday, hospital officials said.
Dr. Thomas Thuan Nguyen, a burn specialist, and part of the team that will be performing the operations, said Posey is “too unstable now” to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Workers Scott Christenson and Travis Lindbergh were taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange with moderate and minor injuries. Phillip Sullivan was treated for minor smoke inhalation at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach and released.
The plant, which processes an average of 153 million gallons of sewage daily, lost power until backup generators kicked in, officials said. The brief outage caused no problems, officials said.
Police closed Brookhurst to all traffic from Pacific Coast Highway to Adams Avenue for nearly three hours.
Neighbors of the square concrete building on Brookhurst said they were unaware anything was amiss until they heard firetrucks.
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Tim Baker, who was making breakfast for his 2-year-old son, Robbie, at the time. Baker, whose home on Summerwind Lane is across the street from the facility, said he saw fire engines and then a helicopter flying low over his house.
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Times staff writer Vivian LeTran contributed to this report.
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