Tulsa, Okla.— People who work at the Tulsa, Okla. site of Airgas, Inc. are still talking about "what might have been" after an Aug. 18 explosion that took place at the plant's outdoor cylinder storage area.

Remarkably, no injuries were reported at the Mid South location. Buildings on the site suffered only minor damage. But more than 60 employees' cars and some adjacent structures were impacted. In addition, nearly 5,000 Airgas cylinders also suffered some damage.

"Our first priority was to assure the safety of our people and the general safety of our community," said Mike Duvall, president of Airgas Mid South. "We are very grateful that there were no injuries. We want to congratulate the professionalism of the Tulsa Fire Department and other responders who helped to swiftly contain the accident."

Customer deliveries were made the next morning and few service delays resulted from the accident. All Airgas sites have emergency response plans and Tulsa implemented its after the explosion. Airgas Mid South moved its IT operations to Oklahoma City, Okla., and established extra phone lines for customers at a branch in Broken Arrow, Okla.

Although electricity and phone lines were interrupted, Airgas was able to restore power to the fast-fill plant and resume filling operations the next day (Aug. 19).

The Tulsa facility normally fills approximately 1,800 cylinders per day. It is one of nearly 200 Airgas fill plants nationwide. The company is based in Radnor, Penn. Airgas is the largest U.S. distributor of industrial, medical and specialty gases, welding, safety and related products.

This past July, there was another explosion in the Sacramento, Calif. branch of Airgas Northern California & Nevada.

"In both cases, Airgas people followed well-rehearsed emergency response plans to assure the safety of our people and the community and to quickly restore our ability to serve customers," noted Glenn Fischer, president and chief operating officer of Airgas, Inc. In that incident, the branch resumed operation within 48 hours.

Airgas' SAFECOR safety and compliance team has established 24 Airgas Emergency Response Organization teams throughout the country, which train regularly to respond to such incidents.

Fischer added that there is no apparent evidence that the Sacramento and Tulsa incidents are related. A separate SAFECOR team is investigating both incidents.