Alabama governor Robert Bentley has declared a month-long state of emergency after a pipeline explosion in Shelby County that killed one and injured six workers. The state of emergency came into effect on Tuesday, and will last until December 1 unless the governor decides to end it sooner. On Monday, construction crews working on the Colonial Pipeline in the area just south of Birmingham accidentally hit a transmission pipe, causing an explosion in which seven
workers were injured, one of them fatally. The explosion also started a fire. The contractors were attempting to repair the pipeline segment that was damaged in September, spilling gas into the countryside. An extended shutdown could cause fuel shortages and higher gas prices in Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee, similar to what happened after the September accident. READ MORE
