A previously planned meeting with police Tuesday takes on added urgency with the annual race weekend coming up May 3-5. As many as 33,000 people are expected to take part in downtown Cincinnati for a weekend of races highlighted by the 15th marathon Sunday morning.

The race’s executive director, Iris Simpson-Bush, says the race already has extensive security and medical response plans in place, but officials will consider whether additional measures are needed.

Among the Ohioans in Boston for Monday’s race were the chief prosecutor for Cuyahoga County and the wife of Ohio’s secretary of state.

There weren’t any immediate reports of Ohioans being among the injured.

The Times Reporter in the Dover-New Philadelphia area says the blast happened Monday morning near Bolivar, about 65 miles south of Cleveland.

An employee at a nearby group home says he felt the ground start to shake and looked toward the oil well. He says the cover of a storage tank shot about 100 feet into the air, and fuel leaked down a driveway and into a field.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the fatality occurred or what caused the explosion.

Responders from more than a half-dozen departments helped to get the resulting fire under control. Hazardous-materials crew were trying to contain the fuel spill.

And Weener says preliminary reports show speed was not a factor.

“At this point, the speed was where it was supposed to be going into the curve and there were no apparent anomalies that the crew noticed coming up on that curve.”

Weener says it also appears the track had been inspected recently.

The derailment caused at least three cars each carrying 30,000 gallons of ethanol to explode. Those cars were still burning early Thursday.

Weener says the federal agency has 12 people in Columbus trying to figure out what happened.

Lead investigator Cy Gura says they’re now re-railing the train cars that can be placed back on the track.

“As the cars are being re-railed, we are looking for evidence,” Gura said.

“We are going to forensically look reconstruct the rails and the same with the cars and put them off to the side. Once they are off to the side, then they can start building the track so I am going to venture a guess that the track will probably be built within a day or two.”

Railroad owner Norfolk Southern says until investigators are finished, trains will be diverted through another part of Columbus.

Weener expects his team will be in Columbus, investigating the derailment, for about a week. He says this investigation could take up to 18 months to complete.

“We are just beginning the fact finding phase and so we are just gathering information.

“Very briefly, an investigation of this sort can take a year or 18 months before we come to a probable cause and recommendations.”

The derailment caused some cars containing ethanol to explode. That forced evacuations of homes and businesses within a one mile radius. Most of the people who were evacuated after the explosion Wednesday have been allowed to return to their homes.

The Morgan County Sheriff’s Office said one woman was taken to a hospital. Her condition is not known. Authorities also say two homes were damaged near Glouster.

People up to 12 miles away felt the explosion and heard the roar of the fire.

Houston-based Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company said it was a rupture in its interstate natural gas transmission line. A company spokesperson said a crew has isolated the segment involved and shut off the gas. The cause of the rupture has yet to be determined.

Fire officials could not immediately say what caused Sunday night’s blast at the Jerusalem Restaurant. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was participating in the investigation.

Cincinnati police Lt. Joe Milek told reporters that the injured person went in a private vehicle to a hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. Milek says investigators believe the man is somehow connected to the restaurant.

People at a business next door told Cincinnati media that the Jerusalem Restaurant had shut down earlier this month.

Fairborn Fire Marshal Carl Day says the Saturday blast injured six others and damaged neighboring homes.

Day says the injured includes four children. A spokesman for Dayton Children’s Medical Center says a 1-year-old was in fair condition and a 5-year-old was in good condition Sunday morning.

A third child, whose age wasn’t available, had been treated and released Saturday.

A spokeswoman says a 13-year-old was transferred in critical condition to Shriner’s Hospital for Children.

Two men also had been injured, but their conditions have not been released.

Police say the explosion likely happened crew digging for a water line hit a natural gas line.

City crews and private contractors were suctioning out debris Monday from a large hole on Fort Street one of several that were blown open when gasoline exploded inside the city’s hundred-year-old storm water system. The street department’s Delbert Keims said crews won’t be able to determine the extent of damage until clean-up is complete.

“We’ve got to go up on the other end somewhere and run a camera down the pipe and see if we have any other major damages anywhere else besides here,” Keims said.

The car accident occurred near the top of one of Nelsonville’s hills and fuel leaked from the filler cap according to the fire department’s Dan Pfeiffer.

“As it worked its way down the open ditch it entered into an enclosed system,” Pfeiffer said. “It found a hole somewhere and it found an ignition source somewhere; a pilot light, someone flipping an electrical switch that created a spark, someone threw a lit cigarette near a manhole; there’s no way for us to tell.”

That, according to resident Linda Westfall, was the end to a quiet evening in the neighborhood.

“We just heard this loud boom – I mean it was just the worst sonic boom you ever heard,” Westfall said. “And at that time we didn’t know what was causing it so that made it really scary.”

Two homes sustained moderate damage according to the fire department. Damage to Linda Westfall’s neighbor’s house was worse because the old storm drain ran directly beneath her neighbor’s basement.

“She has a gaping hole in the basement; the dryer is tilted out and it moved the washer around and there’s a pretty large hole and you can hear the water running through that storm sewer,” she said.

All evacuated residents were allowed to return to their homes, though the most heavily damaged house still cannot be occupied. Damage to homes is estimated at $30,000. The Nelsonville city council will be asked to allocate $25,000 at its regular meeting Monday night to begin storm drain repairs.

Businesses along Morse Road remained dark Monday afternoon after an early morning fire at Substation Nine on Karl Road. The explosions that preceded the blaze caught Shirley Gattordam’s attention a half-block away.

“Well there was loud booms like it could have been thunder or something like that. And my husband went out to look around and all the smoke and fire was up in the air and the smoke was blowing around. And all of our electric went pzzzt!’”

Two of the substation’s three transformers were destroyed. A mobile transformer on a flat bed trailer arrived around one o’clock. But according to the power company, repairs may not be complete until Tuesday. That’s bad news for dozens of banks, department stores, gas stations and restaurants along Morse Road that remained closed due to the outage. Grandad’s Pizza remained open, but manager Patrick Cardi says business has been slow.

“We haven’t done any business. One guy came in and ordered some subs over the counter and that’s it. We have a stone oven. We can’t roll any pizza dough. The middle oven runs off a pilot light. It’s gas,” says Cardi.

A MacDonald’s nearby was completely shut down. Manager David Kendricks says besides the loss of customers, the restaurant was loosing food.

“The bad thing about it is we have food and product in here that will go to waste. No power, no electricity, no refrigeration,” says Kendricks.

Switching has restored power to some localities. The affected area is bounded by Route 161, Cooke Road, Westerville Road and High Street. Sam Hendren, WOSU News.

The state and federal governments have raised the terror alert to code orange for mass transit. That’s the second-highest alert level.

The president of the Central Ohio Transit Authority says bus drivers are watching carefully for anything unusual and officials are reviewing yesterday’s security tapes as a precaution.

Passengers on Cleveland’s trains and buses will hear a recorded message reminding them to report anything out of the ordinary to security. Bus drivers in Columbus have been told to be more vigilant during their routes.

The transit systems in both cities say they have no reason to suspect any immediate threat. (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)