Topeka ? A $7.7 million Reno County jury award for the 2001 natural gas explosions that killed two Hutchinson residents was reversed Friday by the Kansas Supreme Court.

At the same time, the justices upheld the jury’s 2004 decision that businesses collectively suffered no damages; business owners and private property owners had filed separate class action lawsuits.

The jury awarded $5 million in damages plus attorney fees for the $7.7 million total against Kansas Gas Service Co. – at the time a division of Tulsa, Okla.-based ONEOK – and Mid-Continent Market Center Inc., a subsidiary of ONEOK and owners-operators of a natural gas storage facility northwest of Hutchinson.

Experts testified at the trial that explosions were caused by the escape of 143 million cubic feet of natural gas from the Yaggy storage facility.

The gas leaked from a cavern several hundred feet underground at Yaggy Field and rapidly seeped underground toward the city, where it shot up through unplugged salt brine wells. A blast rocked downtown Hutchinson on Jan. 17, 2001, destroying the two stores and leaving other nearby buildings in flames.

Gas geysers 30 feet high erupted, forcing hundreds of people out of southeast Hutchinson for several days. The downtown leak was being burned off when another explosion the next day killed a couple at a mobile home park.

Lee Thompson, of Wichita, one of the attorneys representing the business and property owners, said he didn’t want to comment until he has analyzed the ruling other than to say, “I know it is disappointing to the citizens of Reno County.”

Charles Lee, of Hutchinson, one of the attorneys representing the gas companies, said his clients were pleased.

“We feel the decisions were consistent with the law throughout the United States and are happy the court viewed it the same way,” Lee said.

The district court certified the class as all real property owners in Reno County who suffered or will suffer diminished property values and all business owners within the county from Jan. 17, 2001, until the present.

The lawsuits were separate from other proceedings and settlements pursued by individual business owners. The court noted many of the property and business owners who suffered damages individually settled or litigated their claims.

In the unanimous opinion, Justice Lee A. Johnson wrote the jury correctly determined the “business class as a whole had not sustained a recoverable loss.”