Posted on 07/15/2023 2:27:05 AM PDT by EBH
PLAQUEMINE - A series of explosions at the Dow chemical plant along the Mississippi River triggered panic in parts of the capital area late Friday night.
Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi told WBRZ that six explosions were detected at the facility around 9:30 p.m.. Witnesses living nearby caught video of massive flames and said the shockwave was felt from miles away, including in parts of Baton Rouge.
All plant personnel has since been accounted for, and the firefighters appeared to have the flames under control as of around 11 p.m.
(Excerpt) Read more at wbrz.com ...
https://www.wbrz.com/news/fire-explosions-reported-at-dow-chemical-plant-in-plaquemine/
Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi told WBRZ that six explosions were detected at the facility around 9:30 p.m.. Witnesses living nearby caught video of massive flames and said the shockwave was felt from miles away, including in parts of Baton Rouge.
Location is Plaquemine, Louisiana. Plant is at the Mississippi River.
That was a BIG boom! The fact that there are no casualties is amazing.
Video
Massive explosion reported at the Dow Chemical Plant
https://rumble.com/v304c6y-massive-explosion-reported-at-the-dow-chemical-plant-in-plaquemine-louisian.html
Silly me. I thought Baton Rogue was the capital of Louisiana. When did it move to Plaquemine?
“Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi said about 9:20 p.m. several explosions happened in the facility’s glycol (antifreeze) area, causing a fire. As of about 10:50 p.m., he said there were no injuries and all workers were accounted for. Stassi said the cause of the explosion is unknown, but something in the process went wrong.”
Plaquemine is basically across the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge. Sounds of large explosions don’t stop at the river bank.
I worked at that plant for 20+ years and commuted from Baton Rouge to Plaquemine daily.
BTW…. That Dow facility is not located inside the town itself. IIRC there are several chemical companies with operations along that west bank manufacturing corridor. The east bank though has chemical companies and refineries for 100 miles between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
“something in the process went wrong.”
No kidding.
Lawyers are on the way. This will be bigger than NORCO.
Leftist Terrorism.
Thanks for that info. I have never been there.
Yup! More dem activity.
This is the first time we have heard of a big chemical plant blowing up. But various other kinds food processing facilities around the country have been burning down at regular intervals in recent years.
I don’t know if this is normal wear and tear, falling competence of factory staff, or something nefarious.
Do you guys remember big fires at other chemical plants over the years? That is, is this explosion normal bad luck? Or do you do you think something else could be involved?
Yes...there have been major accidents/fires/explosions at many large chemical and petrochemical plants over the years. They are rare, but do happen. An underappreciated cause is "downsizing", which gets rid of long-term experienced operations personnel leaving lesser experienced personnel running plants...then booms happen.
Lots of infrastructure destruction over the past few years.
Chemical manufacturing and refining have their own variety of hazards associated with them. I have zero knowledge or detail regarding the specific incident at this chemical complex in Plaquemine. I am though well experienced in the chemical and refining industries, very closely related to each other. Blissfully retired ChE.
The feed stocks and products usually are flammable, corrosive, and/or have health hazards under certain conditions. These are managed via training, maintenance, design and obsessive attention to detail.
There are differences in the safety culture from on company to another. Myself as an example…. My root training and experience was with companies with extremely high end safety cultures and training.
Later in my career and in consulting, I simply needed to pull a sample of liquid from a 500K gallon tank. I made an appointment with operations and an operator and I went out to the tank. The operator's PPE gear was normal Nomex coveralls, hard hat, steel toe boots, heavy dish washing grade gloves and a full face gas mask. By my company's and my own personal standards using MSDS information, I was more robustly dressed out. Rubber steel toe boots, Nomex, hard hat, full chemical slicker suit with hood, heavy chemical grade gloves and gas mask.
In the 80-90 time frame there were several incidents with mass fatalities in chemical and refining and safety incidents industry wide were increasing. The two I have in mind had about 30-40 fatalities each IIRC. Both happened during plant maintenance shutdowns.
Root cause…. Contractor maintenance crews did not speak or understand English. Base safety training was haphazard, daily safety and work task briefings involved folks bobbing their head yes I understand but they started the day not knowing exact conditions. Both of these incidents happened during total maintenance shutdown and were because lockout padlocks on valves and pumps were removed with a bolt cutter. To address this training problem, a regional safety council was established to provide base and specialized safety training for all contractor persons. This was in both English and Spanish. Due to my work as a consultant, I had to going through this regional training in at least half a dozen regions in the US.
I've been on a number of HAZOPS (hazard operations) teams. This is an OSHA requirement for all new and most modified systems before they can be brought online. This is typically a small core of senior operators, a production engineer, a process engineering expert, a manager and a secretary to create the record of the review. In the 90s when the HAZOPS review became mandatory, all existing operations had to reviewed by a certain date as well. It took one refinery I'm familiar with 12 months to work through all their existing units.
Good summary.
So if its been awhile—people forgot the dangers of being careless, inattentive or just being an amateur newbie who speaks another language.
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