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Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
‘More than just customers': Kansas business owner talks about past, future after explosion
Each day for decades, even on holidays, Darin Clifford started his day by going to or at least driving by his business, Steffens Auto Parts. The last several days, all the 64-year-old finds is what remains of his Hutchinson business after it exploded following a natural gas leak on Saturday. After smelling gas and then being told to leave by firefighters checking the area, he grabbed his coat and left the downtown business minutes before it exploded. Others also evacuated after firefighters found high levels of the gas in the area, but the auto parts store was the only business damaged by the fire. Among the ruins are lots of inventory, a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro he had been working on since high school and a place where friends and customers would come to socialize, often about cars. 'They were just friendly. You would just have guys hanging out down there talking and they could find you anything you wanted,' said Kent Forshee, a longtime customer and friend who referred to Clifford as Cliffy. 'They were open late at night. They were open seven days a week, which really made it, you know, that was not common back in the '70s and '80s and '90s … and these guys were sharp. Darin, he knew his stuff.' The business was a longtime staple of South Main Street. 'I really don't know any plans just yet,' Clifford said. 'I will wait until the dust settles. I really wasn't ready to retire yet because, like I said, I enjoyed it so much. But you know, who knows, maybe this was my signal that it's time.' Downtown areas evacuated Saturday were still not open Thursday as repairs to the road and gas line continued. There was also concern that the brick walls of Steffens Auto Parts could fall at any time, Hutchinson Fire Chief Steven Beer said during a news conference Thursday. City officials said Thursday that it could take two weeks for the area to reopen. 'Work is progressing on South Main Street where our crews have completed installing a new 10-inch natural gas main,' Kansas Gas Service said in a news release Thursday. 'We have restored natural gas to the remaining businesses that were without service.' Evergy was still working to get power to 20 customers affected, an official said during a news conference Thursday. Beer said officials would work with business owners to allow access to their buildings to retrieve items. Asked if the explosion could have been prevented, Beer said: 'With all the technology and equipment in the modern day that we have here, disasters still happen throughout the country.' Beer said gas was still being taken out of the ground and there were 'still concentrated levels in the soil.' It is 'still a hazardous material atmosphere,' he said. Asked if there is still a danger to the public, he said: 'I personally don't believe so but that would be a Kansas Gas question.' National Transportation Safety Board investigators on Tuesday oversaw the 'extraction and securement of the failed pipe' to be shipped to Washington, D.C., for examination, the federal organization said in a news release. A preliminary report about what happened will be available within 30 days on the NTSB pipeline investigation page; a final report will take one to two years, the organization said. Clifford and Jack Monaghan, who owns a building across from the auto parts store and also evacuated minutes before the explosion, said that since the explosion officials have drilled holes in the concrete and used a device to force the gas out of the ground. The area around the explosion and on south is an older part of Main Street, where some buildings are used for storage. It has struggled over the years to attract businesses that draw customers. The loss of the longtime business would only add to that. Around the late 1940s to early 1950s, Clarence Steffens started Steffens Auto Service at 505 S. Main, according to Clifford and information in the Hutchinson News-Herald. Steffens' son, Eldon 'Butch' Steffens, one day decided he wanted to open an auto repair parts shop and bought the building at the southeast corner of Avenue E and South Main, a half-block north of his father's shop, Clifford said. He called it Steffens Auto Parts. It opened at 428 S. Main in 1968, according to the Hutchinson News. 'The rest is history,' Clifford said. Clifford, right after high school, assembled piston pumps at a Cessna location in Hutchinson then before being laid off in 1980. A friend, Jeff Nichols, worked for his father, Ralph Nichols, at his business, Steffens Auto Service. Clifford often hung out there and would run down to Steffens Auto Parts when they needed something. 'And so they knew I got laid off, and they called me and wanted to know if I wanted a job,' Clifford said. 'They hired me and I've been there ever since.' He loved the work and the customers. 'I just, I enjoyed it so much. I'd just looked around and think, 'Man, someday maybe this could all be mine,'' he said. 'It was my life. It's hard to describe that, people don't understand me sometimes, but I enjoyed it that much. I didn't want to do anything else.' He bought the business and building in 1997. He thinks the purchase price was $300,000, with the down payment being about a month's worth of business from money he and his wife, Sheryl Clifford, saved up. They then made monthly payments to Eldon Steffens. 'I made a living just fine and I was never late on the payment,' he said. 'I made my mind up that I was never going to be late. There were some months it was a little scarce, but it worked out.' It became a place where customers would become friends and some would even hang out on the couches and chairs in the back as they talked about all different topics, often while drinking a soda or a beer, Clifford said. Inevitably, cars would come up. Forshee had owned Wasson Supply Co., a paint and body shop supply store that he sold in 2012, about a half-mile from Clifford's business. He was a customer of Steffens Auto Parts, but also became friends with Clifford. He would hang out for those late-night talks and the two even went to car shows together. Forshee left his mark on the shop, though he moved away a few years ago. He likes Pontiac GTOs, but others at the shop are 'all Chevrolet guys,' he said. On his birthday in 1984, he wrote a poem in marker on the medicine cabinet of the bathroom. It was written in all caps. 'GTO, the only way to go! Be it raceing (sic) or be it show. Why they make other cars, I don't know cause you just can't beat a GTO!' Clifford sent him a photo of the poem a few years ago. 'That's all gone now too, burned down in the fire,' Forshee said, adding he lay in bed Saturday night thinking about all the memories there. Lost in the fire was the store's inventory, including auto parts, repair items and high-end grills Clifford started selling in the early 2000s. Also lost were cars: the Camaro, a 1972 Lincoln Mark IV and a 2002 Lincoln Blackwood, one of just over 3,000 made. Clifford's son also kept a pickup truck there. Those vehicles all ran; the Camaro didn't. Still, Clifford says he is lucky to get out when he did and that other buildings didn't blow up as well. Monaghan was in his building, which is just across the street and a couple doors down from Clifford's, about 15 minutes before the explosion. He was at the back of the business when a firefighter knocked on his door. The firefighter had a gas reading monitor 'that was screaming at him, saying there was gas in the air,' Monaghan said. He was told to evacuate. It was just before 9:30 a.m. Saturday. Monaghan locked up and left. He went to a business a block to the west, then looked outside. He saw something burning. He never heard the explosion. Clifford was also nearby when the explosion happened. He had some customers that morning, but was alone when things took a turn for the worst. He went into his office for a minute and then went to the counter, where he smelled gas 'pretty bad.' Clifford checked to see if spray cans were leaking, but didn't see anything. He got a water spray bottle and sprayed around the regulator on his furnace, but didn't see any bubbles. He realized it was natural gas. 'And I looked up and I seen fire department was across the street from me,' he said. 'They was hustling around with these little sniffers, you know, sniffing the street, the sewer drains and stuff like that.' He opened the door and asked if there was a gas leak. 'And they said, yeah, they had a major gas leak and they couldn't find it,' he said. The firefighters walked over to his store and asked if Clifford could smell gas inside. 'And he no quicker said that, he said, 'Oh, hell yeah, you can smell gas,'' Clifford said, ''you got to get out of here right now.'' Clifford lowered the furnace temp, grabbed his coat, went out the door and got in his pickup. He backed up to a used car lot he owns across the street. He sat in his truck for a few minutes there. Fire vehicles pulled up. Firefighters jumped out. 'They was moving. They was hustling,' he said. 'And they drug hoses down the street. They hooked them up to all available fire hydrants.' He added: 'I was thinking, man, they know something is up.' A fireman motioned that he needed to move. He moved, then pulled over to talk to a friend who was coming to meet him. That lasted a few minutes. Then, he drove around the block. He saw a plume of smoke before he turned onto Main to see his business. 'I was really thinking in my mind that, in 30 minutes they was gonna tell me it was okay to go back to work,' he said. 'By the time I come around the corner, it was already blown up.' Clifford was in shock. 'I was like, it just can't be,' he said. 'It was fully engulfed in flames.' He pulled down an alley near Main just south of his store. 'I sat there for probably an hour, just watching it burn,' he said. Clifford said he could still smell the odor that is put in the gas, which is often described as smelling like rotten eggs, days after the explosion. Monaghan said he could smell it just after 8 p.m. Saturday when the officials escorted him back to his business. 'It smelled horrible and their alarms were going off,' he said, adding that the 'building was at a volatile stage of gas when we were in there.' He said he turned off the pilot light on his furnace once he was inside. No one was hurt from the explosion and fire. Things could have been much worse, Clifford said. A video from the Hutchinson Fire Department showed firefighters were within a few dozen feet of the store when the explosion happened. Clifford couldn't believe the video. 'It was kind of eye opening knowing that it was that close. If I was in there, I probably wouldn't have gotten out,' he said, adding he is going to miss it all. 'I tell people that most of my customers was more than just customers. They was friends.'
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Gas leak causes explosion, evacuation around downtown Hutchinson, chief says
Hutchinson officials evacuated several blocks near and around downtown after a gas leak caused an explosion Saturday at a longtime auto parts store, according to fire chief Steven Beer. Firefighters were called at 9:26 a.m. about a gas odor at Steffens Auto Parts, 428 S. Main. It's an odorized gas, Beer said. 'Upon arrival crews witnessed the building exploded,' Beer said in a news release just after 1 p.m. 'Everyone in the structure got out. This fire is a gas fed fire through a (10-inch) natural gas line. The main body of fire at (the auto parts store) has been controlled however the street and sidewalk remains on fire due to the gas leak. Crews went to a defensive operation using unmanned freestreams.' Video and photos online show several water lines all going to fight the fire. One person said on Facebook that her family member, owner Darin Clifford, 'evacuated just before it blew up.' The city of Hutchinson said at around 11:50 a.m. that, because of 'a large fire in the downtown area,' it was evacuating Avenue A to Avenue F and Plum to Adams. That area could be expanded, Beer said. 'All residents and businesses within these boundaries are urged to evacuate immediately for their safety,' the city said on Facebook. Tony Hernandez, who shot video of the fire, said he could smell gas and could see a gas line burning in front of the store. The Hutchinson man said it smelled like propane. Eldon 'Butch' Steffens opened Steffens Auto Parts in 1968. Darin Clifford, who started working at Steffens in 1980, purchased the business in 1997 when Butch retired, according to the Hutchinson News. This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
