Okay I need some help here. Just did a couple of searches on the Internet to find out more about the explosion at a generating station at (if I heard this right) Notre Dame, Indiana. Perhaps this is just too new and hasn't hit the net yet. Any URLs about this please??

Again, I'm trying to get info on all recent power plant explosions and then compare to the same number of incidences in 1998, 97, 96, etc.

So far I have the Ford Plant at Dearborn, the Kansas City P&L Hawthorne station, and then the recent hydrogen exlosion in Tampa (which apparently was just faulty procedure and not Y2K related).

Not interested in transformer fires thank you, without PCB as a retardant, these catch fire rather frequently.

Thank you in advance for any leads.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), April 15, 1999

Answers

Ken,

Best bet: Find the largest online newspaper in Indiana. They may have a link to regional Associated Press stories.

Second best bet (more time consuming) call the radio station, tv station, or other news source (assuming it was a news source) from which you first heard about the story. They should be able to confirm it. :)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 15, 1999.

Assoc. Press National has 12:00 report showing two workers injured responding to a fire in cooling tower, when a transformer exploded. Notre Dame located in South Bend, Indiana

-- (snowleopard@webtv.net), April 15, 1999.

From the AP wire service: /cat:A/pri:R/sld:A/por:1/for:5/ slu:PM-NOTREDAME- EXPLOSION 1stLd-Writethru ----- @TEXT PM-Notre Dame-Explosion, 1st Ld-Writethru, a0563,0257 Two workers injured in fire, explosion at Notre Dame power plant Eds: SUBS 4th graf, "The two...';, to UPDATE with details of injuries; SUBS last graf to UPDATE with preliminary damage estimate of $1.35 million. SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP)  A fire led to an explosion early today at the University of Notre Dame power plant, seriously injuring two workers. Paul Kempf, the university's chief electrical engineer, and security guard Jami Thibodeaux were responding to a fire in the cooling tower next to the power plant when a small, corrugated metal building housing a transformer exploded about 1:30 a.m. "The force of the blast was considerable. The building was demolished," Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Moore said. The two workers were taken to St. Joseph's Medical Center. The hospital did not immediately provide their condition, but the school said both suffered fractures and concussions. He said investigators believe the fire, which had started a half- hour earlier, caused the transformer to overheat. The fire was eventually put out, but not before the cooling tower sustained considerable damage. The cause of the fire was unknown. Moore said the fire and explosion did not affect the university's power supply, but damage to the cooling tower may have knocked out air conditioning on campus. Preliminary estimates put the damage at $1.35 million, though the university doesn't expect to tally the total cost of the blast for some time. AP-ES-04-15-99 1200EDT 

-- (argh@argh.com), April 15, 1999.

Okay, false alarm, just another transformer fire.

Thank you Argh and Snowleopard for the report. It is much appreciated.

Thanks FM.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), April 16, 1999.