"SISSONVILLE, W.Va. — Sue Bonham was ready to die.
A ruptured high-pressure natural gas pipeline was firing a flame at her house like a blowtorch. She was crouching by a fence in a flower garden behind her home about 200 yards away, struggling to breathe the scalding air. Her thoughts turned to the things she'd miss — grandchildren, birthdays, weddings — but she had made her peace.
"God, please," she thought, "just don't let me know I'm going to burn alive."
About 20 miles down Interstate 77 in Charleston, Jim Cooper was looking at his screen in the control room of Columbia Gas Transmission, trying to decipher an array of signals. It took about 10 minutes and two calls from a different gas company to determine a line had ruptured. It took nearly an hour to shut off the flow of gas."
