Shelter-in-place order lifted after refinery incident
Contra Costa County health officials have downgraded a health alert at 4:17 p.m. today after a sudden power failure triggered a controlled shutdown of the Philips 66 refinery in Rodeo.
At 5:50 p.m., a shelter in place order was lifted after the plant's steam power generation system began working again.
Earlier, county occupational health specialist Jim Gallagher said the alert, the most serious of the three levels in use, means that a problem at the refinery has resulted in the release of materials beyond the site.
At midafternoon, a plume of dark smoke from the refinery could be spotted easily from upstream shoreline communities as it drifted east above the Sacramento River.
Gallagher said the county's Community Warning System sirens and its automatic telephone dialing system were both activated as a result of the incident, which refinery officials reported at 4 p.m.
Gallagher said the cause of the power failure that forced the shutdown is not yet known, but it could have been caused by today's high temperatures
Source: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2002/07/10/refinery.DTL