J.D. Dolan: Anniversary of a Disaster: Edison's Mohave Generating Station Explosion
[J.D. Dolan, who lives in Michigan, is the author of "Phoenix: A Brother's Life."]
On a blue-sky afternoon 25 years ago today, just as the second-shift crew was about to begin work at Southern California Edison's Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., a massive re-heat pipe exploded, unleashing high-pressure, superheated steam into the plant's control room with such force that it knocked down a wall and sealed the exit doors shut. Sixteen people were severely burned in that explosion; six of them died. One was my 39-year-old brother, John Dolan....
Much as we might like to, not all of us can forget. One year after the Mohave Generating Station disaster, SCE dedicated an immovable symbol of its corporate sorrow at the plant: a 28,000-pound marble memorial. I didn't attend the dedication, though my sister Joanne did. Howard Allen, the company's chief executive, also showed up. He had been with the company since 1954, when he'd begun his career as a lobbyist in Sacramento. That day, he didn't engage in the same sort of chummy handshaking he'd no doubt perfected as a lobbyist, since some of the survivors in attendance had lost their hands. Some had also lost their legs, parts of their faces.
"He couldn't take it," Joanne recalled. She worked at SCE's corporate headquarters and knew Howard Allen. When he saw her at the dedication, he threw himself into Joanne's arms, sobbing, and said, "Please forgive me."
A few weeks after Allen's tears had dried, SCE issued a report that absolved itself of any wrongdoing: "Edison examined past and present maintenance procedures at the Mohave plant and found no indication that any operation or maintenance practice had an effect on the failure."...
And SCE has continued to thrive. Howard Allen is responsible for much of that success. In his 1998 obituary in this newspaper, Allen was remembered as "the colorful former head of Southern California Edison Co. credited with orchestrating the utility's phenomenal growth into one of the country's top suppliers of electricity."
And though Allen is dead, his corporate progeny live on. They enjoy even greater influence with their elected officials. They are safe inside their legally fortified headquarters. And when things become too much for them, when they just want back their lives, they will hop on their corporate jets and fly at such a great altitude that all they see is blameless blue serenity far beneath them.
But sometimes, in rare moments, on a grim anniversary, when they are confronted with the reality of their actions, they might weep like the rest of us.
Read entire article at LA Times
On a blue-sky afternoon 25 years ago today, just as the second-shift crew was about to begin work at Southern California Edison's Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., a massive re-heat pipe exploded, unleashing high-pressure, superheated steam into the plant's control room with such force that it knocked down a wall and sealed the exit doors shut. Sixteen people were severely burned in that explosion; six of them died. One was my 39-year-old brother, John Dolan....
Much as we might like to, not all of us can forget. One year after the Mohave Generating Station disaster, SCE dedicated an immovable symbol of its corporate sorrow at the plant: a 28,000-pound marble memorial. I didn't attend the dedication, though my sister Joanne did. Howard Allen, the company's chief executive, also showed up. He had been with the company since 1954, when he'd begun his career as a lobbyist in Sacramento. That day, he didn't engage in the same sort of chummy handshaking he'd no doubt perfected as a lobbyist, since some of the survivors in attendance had lost their hands. Some had also lost their legs, parts of their faces.
"He couldn't take it," Joanne recalled. She worked at SCE's corporate headquarters and knew Howard Allen. When he saw her at the dedication, he threw himself into Joanne's arms, sobbing, and said, "Please forgive me."
A few weeks after Allen's tears had dried, SCE issued a report that absolved itself of any wrongdoing: "Edison examined past and present maintenance procedures at the Mohave plant and found no indication that any operation or maintenance practice had an effect on the failure."...
And SCE has continued to thrive. Howard Allen is responsible for much of that success. In his 1998 obituary in this newspaper, Allen was remembered as "the colorful former head of Southern California Edison Co. credited with orchestrating the utility's phenomenal growth into one of the country's top suppliers of electricity."
And though Allen is dead, his corporate progeny live on. They enjoy even greater influence with their elected officials. They are safe inside their legally fortified headquarters. And when things become too much for them, when they just want back their lives, they will hop on their corporate jets and fly at such a great altitude that all they see is blameless blue serenity far beneath them.
But sometimes, in rare moments, on a grim anniversary, when they are confronted with the reality of their actions, they might weep like the rest of us.