New Porter Ranch Gas Well Blowout Video
December 10, 2015Newly released video of the Aliso Canyon gas well blowout shows a rolling cloud of methane gas barreling down a mountain towards Porter Ranch, CA. This new video, shot on December 9, 2015 with a specialized FLIR GF320 infrared camera, used by regulators to find leaks at natural gas facilities, highlights the horrifying scale of the issue facing local residents. The video captures the gas cloud, at 60x speed, as it escapes its containment in the storage well, in the Southern California Gas Co. facility at Aliso Canyon, and moves downhill towards Porter Ranch.
Previously released video, using the same infrared camera, shows a hazy cloud drifting slowly through Porter Ranch neighborhoods.
The breach at the SoCalGas facility at Aliso Canyon was first discovered on October 23, 2015. The California Air Resource Board estimates that 50,000 kilograms of gas are leaking into the air every hour from the breach. Since that time, over seventeen hundred families have requested relocation assistance from SoCalGas, however, the company has been slow to respond with delays still ongoing and evacuation requests taking days to fulfill. Since the gas well blowout was first discovered many residents have reported nausea, dizziness, vomiting, nosebleeds, and headaches caused by the escaping gas.
On December 8, 2015, after harsh criticism from local residents, SoCalGas issued an update on its progress to plug the leak. The newest estimates from the company indicate that they issue may not be resolved for at least three to four months.
