Bunch of small platforms in the lake toward the west end near spillway. Heard a rumbly boom but thought it was (hopefully) thunder. All over news now but no one knows anything. Still burning.
Slightly more here:
http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2017/10/kenner_oil_rig_explosion_lake.html#incart_river_index
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Crude futures jumped $0.50 on the news
7 rescued 5 critical 1 unaccounted for. They are trying to reach valve to shut fuel off.
Seeing that fire at night brought back a memory from when I was a kid in New Orleans around 1969 or 1970. A freighter and oil barge collided close to the Huey P. Long bridge.
The local UHF station was on one of the higher floors of the Trade Mart building and cut their feed for a live broadcast.
Dad loaded us up in the car and drove down to the levee to watch. The barge broke into three flaming pieces that were scattered down river.
The freighter was stuck under the bridge and burned until it sank.
I vividly recall my father saying to us, “if there’s an explosion HIT THE GROUND.”
This is called a “blowout”, and for it to happen requires a number of people to have made mistakes in setting things up, and then more in not reacting to the problem in the proper manner.