There is controversy about whether there was sufficient time for a more effective emergency evacuation. The main problem was that most of the personnel with the authority to order an evacuation had been killed when the first explosion destroyed the control room. This was a consequence of the platform design, which did not include blast walls. Another contributing factor was that the nearby connected platforms Tartan and Claymore continued to pump gas and oil to Piper Alpha until its pipeline ruptured in the heat in the second explosion. Their operations crews did not believe they had authority to shut off production, even though they could see that Piper Alpha was burning.