The smell of ammonia has to scare many long-time Houstonians, do you remember the deadly ammonia truck accident at the 610/59 interchange about 30 years ago? We were leaving the Galleria right after it happened and could smell some of it, but thankfully were far enough away and got out of there soon enough.
So far it appears that everything has been just coincidences on a busy day, as has happened before.
Oh, yeah, I lived not far away, but didn't smell it - just watched the whole thing unfold.
Scarier to me is the smell of mercaptan. I smelled it one day really strong and went outside to see what I could see.
It turned out that a large natural gas pipeline had been ruptured by some construction equipment right under the West Loop at the Meyerland Center. I walked down there and could see the "vapors" spewing out.
They evac'ed two stores (no one else would leave the other stores!) and it was at least 8 hours before they were able to get it capped - had to shut it down at the closest big valve and *wait* until it emptied.
What was really scary was standing down there watching all the huge amounts of traffic flowing right over it - knowing that any tiny spark might cause an explosion. I'm still amazed that cutting a large pipe like that just made a broken pipe and didn't blow up everything in its path.
A tanker caught fire in my neck of the woods today (Sugar Land) at the Nalco plant. It's cleared up now.
>So far it appears that everything has been just coincidences on a busy day, as has happened before.<
Do you know any professional investigators? I'll lay you odds that not a one believes in coincidences. Coincidence is a word you use when you don't want the general public to know the truth.