Oil Disasters Disasters
Hutchinson is the largest city and county seat in Reno County, Kansas, United States, and located on the Arkansas River. It has been home to salt mines since 1887, thus its nickname of "Salt City", but locals call it "Hutch". As of the 2010 census, the city population was 42,080.
On January 17, 2001, 143 million cubic feet (4,000,000 m3) of compressed natural gas leaked from the nearby Yaggy storage field. It sank underground, then rose to the surface through old brine or salt wells, making around 15 gas blowholes.
An explosion in the downtown area at 10:45 am destroyed two businesses and damaged 26 others. An explosion the next day in a mobile-home park killed two people. The Kansas National Guard was called in to help evacuate parts of the city because of the gas leaks, and a team of specialists looked over all the city for leaks after the event. These events were broadcast on nationally televised news stations across the country.
The source of the gas was determined to be a natural gas storage facility west of Hutchinson. In the 1980s, underground caverns had been created to store propane in a layer of salt called the Hutchinson Salt Member of the Wellington Formation, about 500 to 600 feet below ground. The impermeable rock above the salt layer prevented the gas from flowing up to the surface. However, when a hole developed in a pipe used to move gas in and out of the underground caverns, the highly pressurized gas escaped through the hole and worked up to a permeable layer. The gas then migrated miles underground until it found outlets—long forgotten abandoned brine wells used to mine salt—to the surface. More details
