Police, fire deal with explosion at Estevan business

Connor Barnstable’s Facebook page may have been more popular than normal Monday.

Barnstable works at Performance Machining in Estevan’s east end, just south of Fourth Street and the bridge leading toward Bienfait. Just after 10 a.m., his boss noticed flames at a neighbouring business, so Barnstable started videotaping what was going on.

“Then the flames just got bigger and bigger really, really quickly and then one explosion happened and it knocked a bunch of stuff off our walls in our shop and we could feel the explosion pretty good,” said Barnstable, who posted the video to Facebook. “Then two more explosions happened and we kind of just backed away a little bit.”

Burke Barnstable also works at Performance Machining.

“We were just working in our shop and you could feel the concussions from the blast, and then we looked out the window and door and you could see the fire,” he said.

Residents as far away as Seventh Street reported the walls of their homes shaking as a result of the explosions.

Connor Barnstable said the shock wave was evident immediately.

“Basically it just felt like someone just blew a quick blast of air right at your face,” he said. “It was crazy. I’ve never seen really anything like that in person — and to catch something like that on video was something else too.

“I’ve never felt really an explosion like that on your face and on your body. You’re like ‘Whoa.’ It’s kind of intense.”

Vickie Lowenberg works at Jay’s Transportation, just across the street from Performance Machining. She said she heard six loud explosions.

“At first I thought it was my dock so I ran out to see if (it was) our building, then ran back in to call 911,” said Lowenberg, who said the flames were huge. “First it was just the smoke, then you could see the flames.”

Barnstable said he spoke with a Regens employee, who said everyone at that shop had got out safely. Barnstable was told a titanium tank had exploded, but he didn’t know what was in it or what caused it to catch fire.

Barnstable and his co-workers were told to go for lunch at around 11 a.m., and he said it looked like the fire was under control when they left. He noted that fire trucks and police cars were still on the scene to keep people from driving down the street towards the scene.

Besides being just down the road from an explosion, this was a bit scarier for Lowenberg because her son-in-law works for Regens. She said she managed to talk to him briefly and he said everyone got out of the building all right.

Speaking around noon, Lowenberg said it looked like things were starting to calm down.

“There’s still a lot of smoke in the air but I don’t think it’s burning anymore,” she said. “It’s a lot clearer for sure.”

— With files from Discover Estevan and 980 CJME’s Joseph Ho and Lisa Schick