CAPPING AN OIL GUSHER

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 7

CAPPING AN OIL GUSHER

With the capping of an oil gusher ■with a two-ton nipple die the met*** of a devastating fire in Oklahoma City was averted on 3rd November, but many clays elapsed before danger was altogether gone, for everything within a radius of two miles of the gusher— houses, lawns, streets, and fields —was covered with a black and shining film through which a fire would have run with the speed of a gale. The capping of the gusher and the final closing of the three- valves in the die after it had been screwed into place were a triumph of engineering skill and human courage,* said the New York correspondent of?#The Times." With the help of an ingenious mechanical guide, the nipple was lowered into place from a derrick, and a crew of 50 rubber-clad men in mica masks screwed" it on to the threads of a casing pipe with steel arras 45ft long. Then, one after another, they closed the three' valves in Ihe cap, and the monster -was tamed. But previously for many hours they lintl been in risk of their lives, as, with wooden and copper hammers to mini3i]iae the risk of creating sparks, they lore away the connections damaged by Hi 3 first blast of the gusher to make its capping possible. A single spark would have been the end of them all.