The Audio of the Pipeline Explosion

Monday, June 10, 2024 marks the 25th anniversary of the 1999 explosion of over 200,000 gallons of gasoline in Whatcom Creek.  One year after the explosion, Brett Bonner, then Program Director at KGMI radio, put together a 40 minute audio retrospective. The station aired it one time 24 years ago. It is a tense and dramatic composition of the 911 phone calls, emergency responder radio calls, the radio station's live coverage, and more. It even includes the recorded phone calls with the owners of the ruptured gasoline pipeline, the Olympic Pipeline Company. 

Brett has now placed this 40 minute audio on YouTube as a one-picture video. The audio reveals the confusion and the urgent efforts of our first responders to save lives by evacuating people from near the stream. Three boys who were in Whatcom Falls Park close to the creek lost their lives. The explosion ran a mile and a half down Whatcom Creek, stopping just short of Interstate 5.  

We thank Brett for digitizing this old cassette from long ago, for putting it online where it can be a permanent record of events of that day, and for writing us about his having posted it on YouTube.  Here is the link.