Staff recommends Lemoore City Council deny family's claim in water tank incident

By The Leader Staff
This was the scene near West Hills College following the explosion of a water tank that killed a contractor on June 21, 2021.
This was the scene near West Hills College following the explosion of a water tank that killed a contractor on June 21, 2021.
Gary Feinstein/Feinsteinfotos

The Lemoore City Council on Tuesday (Sept. 7) could deny a claim by the family of Dion Robert Jones, the contractor killed when a Lemoore water tank, located near West Hills College, exploded while Jones was working on it on June 21, 2021.

According to a claim submitted to a third-party administrator of liability claims, Acclamation Insurance Management Services (AIMS), it concluded its investigation and is recommending the City Lemoore reject the claim.  

Paulette Jones, the wife of Dion Robert Jones, is seeking an amount in excess of $10,000,000.

The Long Beach law firm representing Jones’ family is claiming the City of Lemoore that “at all times up to and including the subject accident, the city retained exclusive control and access to the subject water tank for any and all operations, repairs, and/modifications requested or proposed.”

It was on June 21 that the Lemoore water tank, across from West Hills College exploded at about 1:25 p.m. causing the death of the contractor (Jones) while working on the tank. A Lemoore city worker was injured during the incident.

According to workers at the site, who were also working on the tank, it suddenly exploded, and the tank lifted off its pad, causing 1.5 million of water to dump. At the time of the incident, city officials say that workers were finishing up a routine job on the large tank and were removing a pipe that was no longer needed when disaster struck.

According to an advisory issued on July 21, city officials described the accident as an unfortunate and very preventable incident and said the tank had been in service for many years without any problems or incidents.

According to the advisory, the contractor’s employee failed to perform an essential and required safety check procedure before performing hot work (welding) on the tank. The advisory stated that “proper monitoring of the headspace would have alerted the contractor of a condition that existed at a time when he must not perform welding.”

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