A federal investigation into a fatal gas explosion that killed a Chase Bank employee found that the bank's emergency procedures contributed to the accident, and that the blast was not an isolated incident.

The National Transportation Safety Board has released additional information and documents regarding the May 28, 2024, natural gas explosion of the Realty Building in downtown Youngstown. 

Some of the new findings point to the fact that natural gas pipeline operators need to document abandoned natural gas pipelines accurately to prevent future incidents like the explosion in Youngstown that killed one and injured nine people inside the Chase Bank building.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined that Chase Bank’s emergency protocols did not require employees to immediately evacuate the building upon being alerted to a gas leak.

The NTSB investigation revealed this was part of a larger, systemic issue.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which oversaw Enbridge's excavation of 10 service lines that were marked as abandoned near the Realty Building just before the accident, found that two of the other service lines were still pressurized with gas.

After the accident, Enbridge investigated 5,951 other pipelines that were documented as abandoned but with records containing inconsistent or unconfirmed data. Of those lines, the company found that 79 of these pipelines were also active.

Following the new procedures put in place, Enbridge properly abandoned the lines and updated its records.

In August 2024, Enbridge issued a pipeline safety alert to its crews about a revised practice for disconnecting and abandoning service lines.

The new practice states that before completing a service line cut order, the pipeline must be exposed for visual confirmation that the service line has been effectively cut from the main and capped off.

Following the explosion, Enbridge is also installing warning tags on its interior piping assets to alert customers to the presence of pressurized gas and provide instructions on how to contact the gas company.

Enbridge also made a $25,000 donation to the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber's downtown recovery fund.

"Losing a life like Akil Drake's was incredibly difficult for everybody to see as well as nine other people sent to hospitals," Michele Harradence, Enbridge Gas president said. "We've come up with our own views of is there anything that could be done differently, anything we could have somehow done to help keep something like this from happening and we've been working away at that," she said.

The bank also revised its policies regarding gas leaks after the accident, according to the report. 

While the bank required an immediate evacuation in the event of smoke, fire, or a fire alarm, there was no such requirement in the event of a gas leak, the report stated. 

'Chase Bank revised its emergency guidelines and employee training to require immediate evacuation during incidents involving gas leaks. Ohio Edison revised training courses for employees on its emergency processes to reiterate the importance of coordinating and communicating with external incident commanders during all incidents, including those in which no specific work order has been given, to facilitate timely response in emergency situations and reduce delays,' the report reads.

Video footage showed that one Chase Bank employee evacuated the building after being notified of the gas leak about 2:42 p.m. Other Chase Bank employees remained inside the Realty Building for about 2 minutes. 

The report stated that Chase Bank's emergency procedures did not adequately inform employees of the hazards associated with a natural gas leak and the necessity of immediate evacuation. Had the bank employees evacuated immediately, they may have escaped injury.

While Youngstown submitted a design locate request to Ohio's 811 center in January 2024 for those gas lines, showing that Enbridge was aware of the project.

Twice before the accident — once in January and again in May — a contractor for the natural gas distribution operator had located both the main and the active service line and had marked their paths on the ground above them with yellow paint.

Natural gas system maps at the time of the city's locate request to Ohio 811 did not include information about the accident service line. As a result, the Enbridge crew sent to mark the gas lines was unaware of and did not mark the accident service line.

Although GreenHeart, which hired the contractors to remove scrap inside the building, did not directly verify with Enbridge whether the accident service line was transporting gas before cutting into it.

The report states that had GreenHeart done so, the 'inaccurate records and lack of any visual indication that the line was active may have hampered Enbridge from using their standard procedures to discover that the service line still contained gas under pressure.

Crews hired by GreenHeart Companies were working under the sidewalk of the Realty Building, which was hired by the city to fill in the building's basement vaults as part of the city's SMART2 project. 

The report stated that a four-person crew cut through a 3-inch pressurized natural gas and a 2-inch plastic service line, which led to gas meters on the building's east side.