By Michael Glenn
Teen-Age Dirtbag
Nearly since I’d gotten home for Winter Break (Dec. 13), I’ve been working on a two-part series covering the 25th anniversary of the Hutchinson gas explosions.
Joey had tossed the story out in the newsroom that first Wednesday back during our staff meeting, and I figured it might make a good story for me. Thankfully, the newsroom agreed, and the story was mine.
I wasn’t alive when the explosions happened. I’d knew about them from my parents and having it brought up in history/government class, but the full story of the events of Jan. 17 – 18, 2001, was murky.
I remember my first interview with Joe Palacioz, Hutchinson city manager in 2001. I’d known Palacioz and his family through a classmate of mine at Trinity, so we met at Scuttlebutts and sat down to recount the events that saw two businesses destroyed and two lives lost.
“I didn’t get any sleep for three days,” I remember Palacioz mentioning.
Hindsight is always 20/20, they say, so researching the crisis could look static, as if the story didn’t change from beginning to end.
In interviewing Palacioz, news reporters at the scene, business owners, city workers and a former chamber official, I found the opposite to be true.
I can confidently say the first three or so days after Decor Wedding & Party Supplies exploded from leaked gas that found its way into old salt wells were truly one of the most frightening and scary times in our city’s history. This was amplified by the deaths of two active community members, John and Mary Ann Hahn, the next day in a related explosion at the Big Chief Mobile Home Park.
Without Palacioz, Public Works Director Dennis Clennan and Hutchinson Police Chief Dick Heitschmidt’s leadership, among other, important leaders, those three days could have ended with panic, nervousness and even families leaving our town out of fear of more explosions.
Instead, city officials found Kansas Gas to be liable, and they plugged the leak at the Yaggy natural gas storage facility on Jan. 22, five days after the first explosion.
Just imagine the PR nightmare that Hutch could’ve turned into without effective leadership skills on the city’s behalf. The Hutchinson News, still a behemoth of a publication in 2001, reported on the explosions, every little detail, from beginning to end.
This quality, in-depth journalism kept readers informed and also amplified the voices of those who were harmed and needed answers.
Then-mayor Patrick McCreary echoed similar tones of demanding more transparency from Kansas Gas after the explosions in a city council meeting that year, and leadership that isn’t afraid to stick their neck out for who they represent is needed in times of crisis.
The main takeaway from this research, I’ve found, is that this could’ve been much, much worse hadn’t it been for Palacioz and those who went days without sleep, investigating why seemingly random buildings in Hutch were blowing up.
So, I’ll be the first (at least today) in saying “Thank you.”
I’d make a big public call to action encouraging you to thank these leaders, but they are all retired or passed away now. So, if you see them in public, grabbing coffee or hanging out, consider sharing a friendly smile and a short conversation. They should be reminded of how much they are appreciated in Hutchinson, even if one of their best examples of leadership happened now 25 years ago.
In the midst of crisis, silver linings emerge. This lining happened to be for the crown jewel of Hutchinson, downtown. My interviews with Jon Daveline, president/CEO of the chamber, and Jim Seitnater, downtown development coordinator with the city, showed that downtown didn’t give up after 2001.
Even with the decimation of small Main Street businesses with the shopping mall craze of the 1980s and 90s, the gas explosions could’ve been the nail in the coffin. But business owners, even the ones whose storefronts were turned to rubble, persevered, and the improvement work done to downtown after 2001 helped bring a new life to an area recently shook by an unthinkable problem.
Their loyalty to us, the Hutchinson community, is what kept them here. When there was an extremely valid reason to want to leave and start anew elsewhere, they chose to dig their heels in the ground, stand their ground and stay here.
Twenty-five years later, what can we learn from this? This crisis shows that leadership is essential to surviving any crisis, and effective communication from that leadership is even more important. If city officials hadn’t been communicating with news outlets continuously about the information they were uncovering, residents would be left in the dark, panicking about whether or not their neighborhood was next.
Thank you, leaders, for your efforts and keeping our town intact.