Posted on 08/31/2017 5:35:36 AM PDT by Rockitz
Two explosions have occurred at a chemical plant outside of Houston, hours after a spokesman warned a gas explosion was imminent.
The explosions came after The Arkema Inc plant in Crosby, Texas, lost power and its backup generators amid Harvey's days-long deluge, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises.
Just after 2am local time, the Harris County Emergency Operations Center reported explosions at the plant and black smoke rising from the facility.
The Harrison County Sheriff's Office said that at least one officer had been taken to the hospital after inhaling fumes following the explosion.
'One deputy taken to hospital after inhaling fumes from Archem (sic) plant in Crosby,' the HCSO said in a tweet. '9 others drove themselves to hospital as precaution.'
Arkema said in a statement that more explosions could take place in the coming hours or days and warned residents not to return to the area until it has been cleared.
The plant said in a statement: 'Organic peroxides are extremely flammable and, as agreed with public officials, the best course of action is to let the fire burn itself out.
'We want local residents to be aware that product is stored in multiple locations on the site, and a threat of additional explosion remains. Please do not return to the area within the evacuation zone until local emergency response authorities announce it is safe to do so.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
On the Weather Channel a few minutes ago they interviewed some business guy and he talked about the gas prices jumping over 25 cents per gallon in the past week because 25% of the refineries are not turning out gas and they have the oil, but the refineries are not working. Expects gas to JUMP ANOTHER 25-30 cents per gallon by end of October!!! Once they get gas back up to $2.75 per gallon, it will not come back down once everything is running. The gas gods will have got what they wanted. Higher gas prices.
During my career I went to quite a few tanks that were on fire. The pucker factor was always quite high. My first experience with a BLEVE was while I was still on probation. My lieutenant and I were just about to enter a burning house when an explosion blew nearly all the windows and doors out. A barbecue tank in the basement had BLEVE’d and caused a pretty good amount of additional damage since it was in an enclosed space.
The last one I was on came in as a semi-truck on fire at a motel about 5 in the morning. It was still dark and we could see from a freeway overpass half a mile away that we had an impressive looking blaze. So I called for back-up. When we arrived the cab was fully involved, there were large flames coming out of the top of the tank, and the truck driver was going crazy running around the motel screaming that his giant tank full of propane was going to blow and flatten the whole large multi-story motel and the huge casino across the street... He had caused a serious panic so we had half dressed people running and screaming and tearing out of the parking lot. Looking back it was sort of a comical scene of pandemonium.
Fortunately, semi-truck fires are generally not very hard to put out and even though the impressive looking flames from the cab and the tires were impinging on it, and even though the pressure relief valve was releasing gas that had also caught on fire, the tank still had a low probability of causing a BLEVE. We put it out in a few minutes, the pressure relief valve then closed on its own and we had the units after us try to calm everyone before someone was run over or fell down some stairs. A lot of them were drunk to start with.
The truck and possibly the tank were both probably total losses, but no one got hurt during the panic. We managed to get back to the station within an hour or two with an amusing story to tell our coworkers arriving at shift change. A good day.
As a long time member of our HAZMAT team my largest concern at this point with this chemical plant is the release of large amounts of noxious chemicals into the water and air. Although the flood waters may have some benefit... One of our sayings on HAZMAT was “the solution to pollution is dilution.” In low enough concentrations most chemicals used even in industrial applications become mostly harmless. It looks like there is a lot of water running through there so whatever leaks out may be largely washed away with no long term problems able to be identified.
We knew since right after the flood that the chem plant was going to blow.
The DemonRATs blame Trump for the blast:
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