Posted on 07/16/2009 4:57:18 AM PDT by Peter Horry
Donna Petrey got a call just after 8 a.m. Wednesday from her son, telling her the chemical plant across the street had sprung a leak.
I grabbed my 7-year-old grandson, Hunter, and our dog, Oreo, and put them in the car, she said.
At the end of the driveway, she glanced left and was stunned. "It looked like a huge cotton ball. It was so thick, you couldnt see anything through it, said Petrey, 50, who lives across from Tanner Industries, just south of Swansea in Lexington County.
Petrey didnt know it, but a motorist already had driven into that cloud a vast poisonous mist of a deadly chemical called anhydrous ammonia, typically used in cleaning products and hadnt made it out.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestate.com ...
Maybe the one that was trying to stop traffic knew what the cloud was, and the dangers it posed.
I work for a company that owns an ammonia pipeline up north. I don’t work on that line myself, but I’ve heard that is some straight up nasty, horrible stuff. Hard to control it once its loose.
“a vast poisonous mist of a deadly chemical called anhydrous ammonia, typically used in cleaning products”
Uh, no. Anhydrous ammonia is not used in cleaning products - it is a gas at standard temperatures and pressures. In this form it can be used directly as a refrigeration gas, like Freon. I believe it can also be used as a fertilizer. Otherwise it is used as a feedstock for chemical processes, or hydrated to produce aqueous ammonia which can be used in cleaning products. Anyhydrous ammonia, much like hydrogen chloride or hydrogen sulfate, is particularly nasty because it turns to ammonia on contact with water, which the mucous membrames and lungs are full of (the latter two turn to hydrochloric and sulfuric acid, respectively). Result - instant chemical burns inside your lungs, which is not good.
Yup we used as fertilizer for corn for years. VERY NASTY STUFF!! Burns any tissue on contact.Really likes mucus membranes and other “wet” things.
We had the valve come off one tank once.
It cleared the whole shop.
I had to put on an air mask to get in to replace the valve. Couldn[t hold my breath long enough.
My skin afterwards burned like he!!.
I had to decontaminate in the shower, including my clothing, to get back to nornal.
When the Miannus River bridge on I95 collapsed here many years ago, motorists tried to stop a car about to drive off the bridge. It was night time & the driver couldn’t see that the bridge was gone.
The car, with 2 young men in it, flipped the persons trying to warn them the finger & drove off the bridge to their deaths.
Post 4
The writer included material, which references anhydrous and aqueous ammonia, as well as their uses, that appears to have come from the company, .... for what it is worth. That seems to be the basis of his statement.
“Yup we used as fertilizer for corn for years. VERY NASTY STUFF!! “
Charleston, SC (1950s- early 1960s) had a fertilizer plant that would take your breath away, just driving by it. I remember, at least one occasion where they had a leak and evacuated several blocks.
Don’t know if it’s relevant here, but anhydrous ammonia is an ingredient of methamphetamine.
I think just about everything out there but the kitchen sink is an ingredient of meth.
This reminds me of years ago when I lived in Solvay, NY (Syracuse), about a block from the chlorine (chloride? something or other) plant. They had a siren if there was a leak. Once it went off and they told everyone stay inside and shut all the windows. You couldn’t really smell it in the air and it was invisible but even the slightest amount did burn. It was kinda scary. Luckily no-one was seriously hurt.
Oh, they use the kitchen sink too.
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