Investigators combed the Staten Island waterfront yesterday looking for clues in the explosion of a gasoline-laden barge that killed two workers in a spectacular blaze.
They said they were looking into a possible pump malfunction on the barge, which was carrying 100,000 barrels (4 million gallons) of unleaded gasoline when it exploded Friday morning.
Experts said they believed environmental damage from the gasoline would be minimal.
“There’s no threat to the surrounding community” said Capt. Craig Bone of the Coast Guard, which is heading the investigation. “It’s hard to say right away what the cause was.”
About 100 firefighters remained on the scene, and fire officials said some gasoline was still on fire. About 2 million gallons were destroyed.
Barge captain John Kyne, 52, of Huntsville, Ala., was killed in the accident along with the mate, Ford Ebanks, 24, of Miami, Fla., said a spokeswoman for barge owners Bouchard Transportation Co., of Hicksville, L.I.
ExxonMobil employee Frank Scandariato, 48, of Middletown, N.J., was in critical but stable condition yesterday with burns over 15 percent of his body.
He told investigators he heard a strange noise coming from the pumps being used to discharge the gasoline.
“Next thing he knew, he was getting blown to wherever he got blown to,” said one investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Capt. Craig Bone of the Coast Guard, which is heading the investigation, denied charges that emergency officials had overreacted and sent too many units to the site, leaving other potential terrorist targets open to attack.
“The security umbrella stayed in place,” Bone said. “I don’t know how anyone can say we overreacted if they saw the flames.”
Meanwhile, a former barge worker told the Post that Bouchard employees lived a precarious existence on the company’s barges.
Edwin Dinger, 35, of Elizabeth City, N.C., said crew members routinely cooked, smoked and slept on top of millions of gallons of explosive cargo.
“Sometimes we thought twice about turning on the stove, because you never know when the thing could explode,” Dinger said. “All you need is that fume mix to be right, and ‘boom’ . . . It’s living on the edge, yeah, but it’s a living.”