Deregulation, er' socialism, is the cause of this type of accident. Before deregulation our local power companies owned and were responsible for all of their assets. They had a vested interest in the local economy. They operated all of the distribution and transmission of various forms of energy. By the way, power was less expensive this way. After being forced to divest themselves of their assets in various energy venues, by the government, so called for the benefit of the people, outside companies bought up the forced sale of the local assets and proceeded to run them for nothing more than profit. These types of accidents therefore should be blamed on the government in their move to drive our capitalist economy to become more third worldly. I think we have arrived.

The people always pay,with their life,higher insurance rates,or they'll be told it was an act of God,then again they may be told they needed explosion insurance.

don't you think there should be some kind of alarm with that much pressure loss in the system.

Millions of homes are sitting within feet of one of these elderly pipelines. All timebombs because of corporate bottom lines. Most owners of such lines know insurance will foot the bills of a accident. All the while making CEO's bonuses bigger each year. If they had to face criminal charges for deaths things might change. It not any different than someone knowing their brakes don't work but tempt faith on every trip. My thoughts are with all the familes that suffered loss of homes and life. All because of a company being negligent in replacing something that has been used far longer than it should.

WHO GIVES A **** just another comapny that does not care

Just like the Exxon Valdez, this won't cost PG&E a dime; rates will be go up in one fashion or the other and the consumer will get the ultimate bill. Exxon just pumped the price of a gallon of gasoline by 10 cents and the damage costs and fines were recovered from the consumers worldwide in less than 2 years. The insurance companies won't lose either, they too will write in a premium bump across the board and everyone will pay accordingly. 100 million across 20 million policy holder...they won't even notice the $5 they will pay to cover this.

As usual the bottom line is what really counts. These people could care less about their physical plant or the welfare of their employees. They seek to shove it to their patrons anyway they can and to maximize profits. Instead of putting money back into their infrastructure they would rather buy Pizza Huts or get iinto other interprizes which they consider more profitable. If these capitolist weasels had to put their profits back into their energy ventures we would not have these problems. Just try to find out where their profits go and you will be ran around in circles and be stopped and challenged at every turn. Yet these energy companies are guaranteed a certain rate of return on their investments. Yep, Capitolism at its finest.

PG&E should have been more selective with their PG&E ENERGY PARTNERS. SUB-CONTRACTORS reps conduct meetings at senior citizens area for free inspections at their houses to look at electric outlets and gas outlets if working properly. FREE is a catch word and why not have a free inspections. Are PGE Energy Partners really have trained people doing this jobs? IS PGE SENDING TO HOMEOWNERS QUESTIONAIRES ABOUT WHAT DID SUB-CONTRACTORS DID IN THEIR HOMES? NONE. OR ARE THEIR AUDITS DONE AFTERWARDS? NONE. PGE ARE VERY TRUSTFUL TO THEIR PGE ENERGY PARTNERS. THESE ENERGY PARTNERS DO NOT EVEN HAVE SIGNS WITH THEIR VANS/TRUCKS THAT THEY ARE ENERGY PARTNERS. BE VERY CAREFUL HOMEOWNERS. There are more gas explosions now in houses when PGE have these PGE ENERGY PARTNERS. Authorities and homeowners should be more decriminating with what these people are doing now. Do not involve the politicians they are not trustful at all too.

Too many comments by un-educated, profanity type, immature people- shows their IQ. I understand that today we can insert a new pipe into an old exsisting pipe which saves a lot of digging and money. We also have machines that can clean older pipes out to insert new ones. Why are we not doing this?? Like BP companies are tring to "save a buck." They are thinking that nothing will happen- its like crossing your fingers. If it happens like BP you are out of luck.

And this isn't the first time this has happen in California, what a racket that PG&E has here in the Golden State,....And they say " WE don't know anything ". So So sad but true!!!