Arthur Hailey: Overload

Immediately beneath was a massive steam chest with high pressure steam lines going in from the boiler and out to the turbine, as well as other service facilities. Both men were wearing hard hats and protective ear pads. Neither precaution, however, was of help in the explosion which occurred with a deafening roar an instant later. The chief and Plant Superintendent Danieli took the secondary force of a dynamite blast, originating beneath the main hall floor, which initially breached a three-foot diameter steam line, one of several running from the boiler to the steam chest. A smaller lubricating oil line was also pierced. The explosion, combined with escaping steam, produced an overwhelming noise, deep and thunderous. Then the steam, at a thousand degrees Fahrenheit and under pressure Of 2,400 pounds per square inch, rushed through the gratings on which the two men were standing.

Both died instantly. They were cooked, literally, like vegetables in a steamer. A few seconds later the entire scene was obscured by dense black smoke from the ruptured oil line, now burning-ignited by a spark from flying metal.

Two plant workers, painting on a scaffold high above the turbine room floor and in danger of being overcome by the rising black smoke, tried to clamber blindly to a walkway some fifteen feet higher. They failed, and fell to their deaths below.

Only in the plant control room-two hundred feet away and protected by double doors-was total disaster averted. The fast reactions of a technician at No. 5's control panel, aided by automatic devices, ensured that Big Lil was shut down without damage to the turbine generator's vital components.

At the La Mission plant it would take several days of inquiry-a painstaking sifting of debris by experts and questioning by sheriff's deputies and FBI agents-to discover the explosion's cause and circumstances. But a suspicion of sabotage would emerge quickly and later be proven true.

In the end, the accumulated evidence provided a fairly clear picture of the explosion and events preceding it.

At 2:40 that morning, a white male of medium build, clean-shaven, sallow-complexioned, wearing steel-rimmed glasses and in the uniform of a Salvation Army officer, approached the main gate of La Mission on foot.

He was carrying an attache-type briefcase.

Questioned by the gate security guard, the visitor produced a letter, apparently on Golden State Power & Light stationery, authorizing him to visit GSP & L installations for the purpose of soliciting funds from utility employees for a Salvation Army charity-a free lunch program for needy children.

The guard informed the Salvation Army man that he must go to the plant superintendent's office and present his letter there. The guard gave directions on how to reach the office which was on the second floor of the main powerhouse and accessible through a doorway out of sight from the guard post. The visitor then left in the direction indicated. The guard saw no more of him until the visitor returned and walked out of the plant about twenty minutes later. The guard noticed he was still carrying the briefcase.

The explosion occurred an hour later.

If security had been tighter, as was pointed out at a subsequent coroner's inquest, such a visitor would not have been allowed into the plant unescorted. But GSP & L, like public utilities everywhere, faced special problems-a dilemma-in matters of security. With ninety-four generating plants, scores of service yards and warehouses, hundreds of unattended substations, a series of widely scattered district offices and a central headquarters comprising two connected high-rise buildings, provision of strict security, even if possible, would cost a fortune. This, at a time of soaring fuel, wage and other operating costs, while consumers complained that bills for electricity and gas were already too high and any proposed rate increase should be resisted. For all these reasons security employees were relatively few, so that much of the utility's security program was cosmetic, based on calculated risk.

At La Mission, the risk-at a cost of four human lives-proved to be too high.

Ile police inquiries established several things. The supposed Salvation Army officer was an impostor, almost certainly wearing a stolen uniform.

The letter be presented, while it may have been on official GSP & L stationery-not difficult to come by-was a fake. The utility would not, in any case, allow its employees to be solicited at work, nor could anyone be located in the GSP & L organization who had written such a letter. The La Mission security guard did not remember a name at the bottom of the page, though he recalled the signature was "a squiggle."

It was also established that the visitor, once inside the powerhouse, did not go to the superintendent's office. No one there saw him. If anyone bad, the fact was unlikely to have been forgotten.

Conjecture came next.

Most probably the bogus Salvation Anny officer descended a short metal stairway to the service floor immediately beneath the main turbine ball.

This floor, like the one above it, had no intervening walls so that even through a network of insulated steam pipes and other service lines, the lower portions of the several La Mission generators could be clearly seen through the metal grating floor of the turbine hall above. Number 5-Big Lil-would have been unmistakable because of its size and that of the equipment near it.

Perhaps the intruder had advance information about the layout of the plant, though this would not have been essential. The main generating building was an uncomplicated structure-little more than a giant box. He might also have known that La Mission, like all modern generating stations, was highly automated, with only a small work force; therefore his chances of moving around without being observed were good.

Almost certainly, then, the intruder moved directly under Big Lil where he opened his briefcase containing a dynamite bomb. He would have looked around for an out-of-view location for the bomb, then would have seen what seemed a convenient metal flange near the junction of two steam lines. After actuating a timing mechanism, undoubtedly he reached up and placed the bomb there. It was in this choice of location that his lack of technical knowledge betrayed him. Had he been better informed, he would have located the bomb nearer the monster generator's main shaft, where it would have done most damage, perhaps putting Big Lil out of action for as long as a year.

Explosives experts confirmed that this indeed had been a possibility. What the saboteur used, they decided, was a "shaped charge"-a cone of dynamite which, when detonated, had a forward velocity similar to that of a bullet, causing the explosion to penetrate whatever was directly ahead. As it happened, this was a steam line leading from the boiler.

Immediately after positioning the bomb-the hypothesis continued the saboteur walked unaccosted from the main generating building to the plant gate, leaving as casually and with even less attention than when he arrived. From that point his movements were unknown. Nor, despite intensive investigation, did any substantial clue about identity emerge. True, a telephoned message to a radio station, allegedly from an underground revolutionary group-Friends of Freedom-claimed responsibility. But police had no information as to the whereabouts of the group or knowledge of its membership.

But all this came later. At La Mission, for some ninety minutes after the explosion, chaos reigned.

Fire fighters, responding to an automatic alarm, had difficulty extinguishing the oil fire and ventilating the main turbine ball and lower floors to remove the dense black smoke. When, at length, conditions were clear enough, the four bodies were removed. Those of the chief engineer and superintendent, scarcely recognizable, were described by a horrified plant employee as "like boiled lobsters"-the result of exposure to superheated steam.