Columbia Gas owner’s stock dives as feds examine ‘Armageddon-like’ explosions

“Our thoughts and continued support are with those who have been injured and affected,” Columbia Gas said in a statement on its website. “We are focused on providing as much support as possible to our customers, residents and communities. ”

The National Transportation Safety Board, whose responsibilities including investigation of pipeline accidents, sent a team to the area Friday morning, but Chairman Robert Sumwalt had no immediate details on the blasts, which left one teen-ager dead and at least 25 people injured. The U.S. Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is assisting both the board and Massachusetts agencies, a spokesman said, and the state’s two U.S. senators called for a Congressional hearing.

The chamber’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee “should hear from regulators and the distribution company to understand how this incident occurred and what must be done to ensure these types of dangerous accidents do not happen again,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, both Democrats, said in a letter to panel chairman John Thune.

Almost 8,000 people were forced from their homes in the immediate aftermath of the explosions, and most of them were still waiting to return a day later. The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency initially blamed the blasts, which started as many as 80 fires in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, on over-pressurized gas lines. Gas remained off Friday in most of the area.

“Investigations like this are very thorough, and very detailed,” Sumwalt told reporters in a briefing carried by WHDH TV News 7 of Boston. The NTSB team’s review will include design of pipeline systems, any maintenance or upgrades recently completed or still under way and the safety practices of the system’s operator, he said.

Investigators expected to remain the area for at least a week, the agency said Friday afternoon, and were collecting “perishable evidence” from the accident sites.

A spokeswoman for NiSource referred further questions to Columbia Gas. The subsidiary said in a statement on its website that crews needed to visit each of the 8,600 affected customers to turn off individual gas meters and conduct a safety inspection. Restoration of service is likely to be “extended,” the firm said, and it has sought assistance from affiliates and other utilities.

“State and local officials have brought together every resource available to get people safely back in their homes,” Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said in a statement on social media platform Twitter. “This will not be a simple process, but doing it right is essential to making sure everyone remains safe.”

The three communities house more than 146,000 residents about 26 miles (40 kilometers) north of Boston, near the New Hampshire border. Lawrence, the largest of them, is a majority-Latino city with a population of about 80,000. Authorities said all of the fires had been extinguished overnight, and the situation was stabilizing.

Hours earlier, Andover Fire Chief Michael Mansfield described a starkly different situation.

“It looked like Armageddon, it really did,” he told reporters. “There were billows of smoke coming from Lawrence behind me. I could see pillars of smoke in front of me from the town of Andover.”

Warren visited Lawrence on Friday, meeting with local officials, police and emergency responders. “The physical damage I saw in Lawrence was staggering,” the senator said on Twitter. “Right now, the focus is on safely getting gas and electricity back on so people can return home.”

— With assistance from the Associated Press.