JACKSON, Miss.—Clara Barbour, 82, died in her home on Bristol Boulevard in Jackson, Miss., when it exploded on the morning of Jan. 24, 2024. Three days later, on Jan. 27, WLBT reported that a second house, this one vacant, exploded about a mile away on Shalimar Drive.
A federal agency is investigating the explosions to determine whether gas leaks or infrastructure failures may have played a role. The National Transportation Safety Board plans to release a preliminary report within the coming weeks.
NTSB spokesperson Keith Holloway said in a statement to the Mississippi Free Press on Thursday that the agency’s initial report will be a short document that “will only include the factual information that is known at that time,” such as physical evidence the agency’s investigators initially collected at the scene of both incidents and information obtained from the people NTSB investigators have spoken with regarding what they witnessed.
Holloway said the NTSB has observed factors that suggest a natural gas leak may have been the cause of the explosion that killed Barbour on Jan. 24. Because the agency’s investigators were already looking into that incident, the NTSB also decided to investigate the Jan. 27 incident as well, Holloway told the Mississippi Free Press.
While the NTSB is more commonly known for its investigations following civilian aviation accidents and rail accidents, natural-gas pipelines also fall under the agency’s jurisdiction. As a federal agency independent of the Department of Transportation, NTSB only investigates accidents to determine safety issues and to make recommendations as to avert a repeat of the same incident in the future.
‘It Could Be Linked’
The National Transportation Safety Board could take between 12 and 24 months to release their second and final report detailing what they believe actually caused the explosions and whether or not any safety measures were missed before Clara Barbour’s death, Keith Holloway said. “The investigation is still very much in its infancy and ongoing.”
“Part of a typical NTSB investigation will include a chronology of events leading up to the gas leak and subsequent explosion,” he said. “Also, the investigation will include
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