Bartlesville Church Damaged After Natural Gas Tank Explodes, Flies Through Window

A Bartlesville church is cleaning up after a compressed natural gas tank exploded, sending the decompressing tank shooting through a portion of their building.

No one was seriously injured in the accident.

Highland Park Baptist Church elder Paul McNeall said they are thankful no one was hurt, because the building can be replaced, but lives cannot.

He said the moment the compressed natural gas tank came flying through the church’s window, the few people in the building at the time heard and felt a huge noise.

“To the best of our knowledge, it went down this hallway hitting sometimes the sides or sometimes the ceilings as you can tell with all the broken tiles and lights,” McNeall said.

He said he believes the tank was being worked on across the street when something went wrong, shooting the tank more than 100 yards across the street, then across their parking lot and straight into the building.

McNeall said this was a freak accident and no one is to blame.

“When it did it, it became like releasing a balloon that had air pressure in it, it was like a balloon,” McNeall said. “I believe it hit their side, and a fence and a car over across the street and eventually aimed across the parking lot and into the north end of our church.”

He said the amount of damage speaks for itself when it comes to just how fast the tank came flying in, but he is thankful no one was in its path.

McNeall said on Sundays that area of the church is used for some Sunday School classes and sometimes their staff uses the hallway during the week.

The vacation bible school organizers are also planning alternate options for this summer’s program since those rooms are unavailable.

He said at first they were left with confusion as to how this even happened, but now, they are filled with gratitude.

“If somebody said come up with 100 things that can damage your church, this would’ve never made the top 100, I don’t think it really seems to be a freak accident,” McNeall said.

He said they are now just waiting for the insurance company involved so they can start to rebuild.