Posted on 02/07/2010 9:27:40 AM PST by malamute
An explosion in Middletown, Connecticut has rocked the town. Initial reports are that about a dozen people have been injured.
Middletown, United States - The Middletown Fire Department just said in a phone interview that they are in the process of putting out a second alarm. There are an unknown number of casualities. The explosion took place at NRG Power Plant on River Road. According to their web site they are the fossil-fueled electric generating plant in the state. Reports are saying that the blast could be felt as far away as Durham.
(Excerpt) Read more at digitaljournal.com ...
How far is Middletown from Lebanon?
Regards,
GtG
WFSB-TV Hartford:
Middletown, Conn. — Police in Middletown said there was an explosion with mass casualties just before 11:30 a.m. at the Kleen Energy plant on River Road.
Sources said at least 250 people were injured with at least two people confirmed dead.
St. Francis and Yale-New Haven Hospitals were on disaster standby to take in injured people from the scene.
Fire departments from around the area are responding.
WFSB has received calls from people from as far as Higganum, Meriden, Prospect and Naugatuck who said that their homes shook from the force of the explosion.
E-mails and calls from viewers also reported shelves and pictures falling from walls inside homes from the force of the explosion.
http://www.wfsb.com/news/22491279/detail.html#
Looks to be about 25 miles, too.
It's hard to gather more details in between Super Bowl hype.
sw
Startup’s a 24/7 business.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I-91 was shutdown or still is shutdown.
Oh, believe me I know. My point was it doesn’t have to be.
Prayers for all involved.
If that is 'journalistically correct' (ie, completely wrong but has all the right words according to the editor), the 'engineer provided' causal info was probably 'loss of sealing oil for the hydrogen in the turbine-generator'. That is to say that the [possibly upwards of 300 MVA] generator (or major auxilliary, like the hydrogen cooler) blew up when > 5 % air mixed with <95% hydrogen, which would be an explosive mixture, was ignited by a spark or flame. Doesn't happen often, and there are multiple redundancies to avoid hydrogen explosions like this. Tragic, loss of life on construction sites always seem uncalled for. pray for all concerned.
I’m surprised my wife hasn’t been called in. She works both at Yale and St. Raphael’s in New Haven. She has to work tonight so I suspect she’ll swamped.
If it’s not, you’re risking operations down the road.
video report here
“major auxilliary, like the hydrogen cooler”
someone I was speaking to wondered out loud the other day whether H2 is actually used for cooling in the synchronous machine. My lecture notes say it is, but they were questioning them
Oh my. Prayers for all involved.
I never thought Siemens made as good a product as GE or Mitsubishi. Noticed that North American Energy Services got the contract to operate. I worked as an O&M Tech for NAES about a year. Without a doubt, some NAES employees are either dead or injured. I wonder who is doing BP starup?
Do you work shift work?
on the other hand if the 'source' really meant to say “loss of sealing oil in the turbine” it could have been a natural gas explosion as others have reported.
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