So,did the tripping of the plant cause the damage or was it the fire that did it?🤔
Fire caused the damage to the cogen power plant. It started as a fault in the electrical wiring then rapidly traveled through cable trays to engulf the power plant. Zero to full blaze in about 15 minutes. Very early in that 15 minutes is when the trip to grid power occurred. If electric was totally lost to the production units, they still would have crashed down via automatic systems that did not require external power. Control rooms also have battery power for lights and controls for more controlled crash.
If the wind had been blowing a different direction and pushed a combustible gas release into the fire instead of away, it would have caused a catastrophic vapor cloud explosion.
While electric power to the facility flipped to grid immediately, steam supply to production units immediately ceased and pressure rapidly dropped. 20+ production units tripped into crash shutdown over a few minutes, some due to loss of steam directly. Others shutdown automatically or by hitting the proverbial red button due to loss of their feed from a networked unit upstream or no place to send their product downstream. In other words, they lost their feed or a place to send their product. Numerous gas clouds, huge flares popping off. Emergency horns blaring their alert codes, i.e. gas release point source continuous blast, evacuation 3 short blasts and all clear 3 long blasts.
My exact location was in an isolated corner of the complex. Our two evacuation routes were blocked as one was in the path of gas releases and the second passed next to the fire. Since we were not in immediate risk, our instruction was to shelter in place. The control room was on a second floor level and had an unobstructed view through the main flare field then to the power plant fire about 1/4 to 1/3 mile away. It was several hours, about 4 IIRC, before my area was cleared to evacuate.
For all the excitement of the day, there were zero injuries. Every single person in the complex had a short duration emergency respirator clipped to their belt. Control rooms and offices stocked with full face respirators + spares. Evacuation routes preplanned and drilled. Seriously obsessive safety training and drills. Emergency communications network by dedicated hard line and radio, etc.