Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Yesterday's Explosion
Well, as I mentioned yesterday at the tail end of my post, something went BOOM in the neighbourhood, and it turned out to be the local chemical plant. We live not quite half a mile/1 km from the chemical plant, and when it went BOOM our house shook, and windows rattled. People as far away as 50 miles/80.5 km felt it! At first I thought someone had driven into our fence, which is attached to our house. I thought I’d look out into the yard and find our Bruno squished under a car, but he was at the top of the stairs on the porch, clamoring to get in he was so scared!
We saw nothing wrong in the yard, so we went out the front door, and saw clouds of black smoke off in the distance. James got in the car to find out what was going on. He thought maybe someone had set an extra big charge at the quarry (we’re also only about 1 km from a gravel quarry, and they dynamite all the time, not usually that big of a BOOM tho!). So he drove over and saw that it was the chemical plant and came home.
We started packing a small bag, just in case we were told to evacuate, but the wind was blowing away from us, so we never did have to go. I kept the dogs in as much as possible all day though, just in case. Bruno hates to stay in and was not happy with me one little bit, but oh well, later on he understood, and I’ll get to that in a minute.
We turned on the TV to find out what was going on, once we heard the news helicopters overhead. A Charlotte station apparently has an employee who lives here in town, so he was on the scene, reporting via his cell phone, until he was told to get out of the area. Some residents were voluntarily evacuated about an hour after the explosion, as the EMS were still unsure as to what was in the plant, and how toxic the fumes were. Of course, the firefighters in all their genius didn’t even have breathing apparatus on themselves!
As I watched the reports on TV and saw people being taken by ambulance to the local hospital, and a couple of people taken in helicopter, we learned that 2 people who had been driving by in their car at the time of the explosion had been taken to hospital. Their car had been overturned, and flipped and rolled several times from the concussion of the blast! And the plant is off-set from the road; that must have been one helluva BOOM being right next to it!
The incredibly stupid thing is, that no one was quite sure what the hell was in that plant, and what would have been burning or if the city should have been evacuated. They just told us to stay in our houses, and don’t leave pets outside too long. Of course in this neighbourhood, very few people even let their dogs out of their cage ever, let alone in the house! I worried for the animals over at the shelter, but they were upwind, so probably ok, other than shaken up by the BOOM.
I did call my Mum to let her know we were all ok, because the company she works for has an office in NC, and she talks to them fairly regularly. As it was all over the 24 hour news networks, and all over the NC stations news, I didn’t want her to hear it from someone else that our town had blown up.
I checked out some of the pictures they had from the WCNC news helicopter, and as soon as I opened the website, there’s a topographical picture of it, and I said Holy Shit! It was leveled! I couldn’t believe it, it was almost completely obliterated, but strangely, there were barrels of something or other still standing. Very very weird! Check out the website http://www.wcnc.com/ their front page today is pretty much all about the explosion. You may have to register to read it, but its free.
The news helicopters are overhead again today, firefighters and environmental crews and chemical safety crews from Washington DC are there to find out if there are dangers to the area. So far, they’re warning towns to the east of us that their drinking water could be contaminated, but our water here in Morganton was upstream from the blast, and from the firefighters run off. One stream apparently had a rather large number of fish floating belly up late yesterday afternoon. The water there will be tested to find out if the fish kill was related to the explosion or not.
Local homes in the area have reported damage to windows and foundations. One woman called in to a local TV station saying that her air conditioning unit was blown out of the window and other windows were smashed. One article I read said one gentleman’s houses’ floors are separating. (I can empathise with that! Our floors are separating in spots too, and it can pinch your feet!) Some are angry that local surveyors have not gone in to check out local homes. I will bet there will be quite a lot of home owners suing the chemical plant for damages.
What gets me is that this chemical company had been fined several times over the years, and several thousands of dollars for non-compliance to quite a lot of environmental and safety measure requirements. Why had the city, county and state allowed them to remain in business? Luckily no one has died because of this, though there are at least 2 plant employees in critical condition, one with burns over 60% of his body. Most employees had got out before the explosion, or were close enough to the door to be thrown clear, but one guy just didn’t run fast enough, and was trapped for sometime before EMS could get to him. The firefighter (they call ‘em Public Safety here in Morganton. They do it all, police, fire, paramedic) interviewed who pulled him out said he’d never seen anyone burned so badly, and he’s been a firefighter for several years.
After a while the 24 hour newsnetworks went back to their regular programming, so I went back to my painting touch-ups in the bathroom, while James was at his doctor appointment. Later in the evening I made some chocolate pudding, and talked to my Mum and sister, then watched Corpse Bride. Hee hee hee, that was funny. Especially the scene when she gives him his dead dog back, and the dog starts barking. George always has to run to the TV when she hears a dog barking, but she couldn’t quite figure this one out, because it had no skin or fur. She sat down to watch, with her head tilted to the side, looking very confused. I laughed and laughed! *snarf*
At sometime shortly after 10pm, the dogs said they wanted out, so I opened the door, and we immediately smelled chemical smoke. The winds had changed direction, and now the cloud was in my backyard and it smelled rancid! Bleah! Bruno stuck his nose out, eyes wide and panicked and he ran to hide in the bedroom. He spent the next 2 hours pacing the house, worried that someone somewhere needed saving and he couldn’t get to them, and he probably also had to go pee but he refused to go out in the stench.
James was at work, and when he got home we took the dogs out on the leashes to pee, it was the only way to get Bruno out. He told me that he had made a bunch of pizzas and delivered them to the firefighters at the scene, and to the Red Cross, who had setup a refuge at the rec centre for voluntary evacuees. Quite a lot of the firefighters were there for more than 12 hours, and possibly through the night. The next shift is there today, still dousing hot spots, and clearing debris so the investigators can get in to find out what caused the blast.
Well, that was our excitement for the year! I think next time we move, we’ll make sure we’re further away from chemical plants than just 1 km! Its way too scary to be so dang close. And way too smelly. Phew! ¶ 12:08 PM
Well, as I mentioned yesterday at the tail end of my post, something went BOOM in the neighbourhood, and it turned out to be the local chemical plant. We live not quite half a mile/1 km from the chemical plant, and when it went BOOM our house shook, and windows rattled. People as far away as 50 miles/80.5 km felt it! At first I thought someone had driven into our fence, which is attached to our house. I thought I’d look out into the yard and find our Bruno squished under a car, but he was at the top of the stairs on the porch, clamoring to get in he was so scared!
We saw nothing wrong in the yard, so we went out the front door, and saw clouds of black smoke off in the distance. James got in the car to find out what was going on. He thought maybe someone had set an extra big charge at the quarry (we’re also only about 1 km from a gravel quarry, and they dynamite all the time, not usually that big of a BOOM tho!). So he drove over and saw that it was the chemical plant and came home.
We started packing a small bag, just in case we were told to evacuate, but the wind was blowing away from us, so we never did have to go. I kept the dogs in as much as possible all day though, just in case. Bruno hates to stay in and was not happy with me one little bit, but oh well, later on he understood, and I’ll get to that in a minute.
We turned on the TV to find out what was going on, once we heard the news helicopters overhead. A Charlotte station apparently has an employee who lives here in town, so he was on the scene, reporting via his cell phone, until he was told to get out of the area. Some residents were voluntarily evacuated about an hour after the explosion, as the EMS were still unsure as to what was in the plant, and how toxic the fumes were. Of course, the firefighters in all their genius didn’t even have breathing apparatus on themselves!
As I watched the reports on TV and saw people being taken by ambulance to the local hospital, and a couple of people taken in helicopter, we learned that 2 people who had been driving by in their car at the time of the explosion had been taken to hospital. Their car had been overturned, and flipped and rolled several times from the concussion of the blast! And the plant is off-set from the road; that must have been one helluva BOOM being right next to it!
The incredibly stupid thing is, that no one was quite sure what the hell was in that plant, and what would have been burning or if the city should have been evacuated. They just told us to stay in our houses, and don’t leave pets outside too long. Of course in this neighbourhood, very few people even let their dogs out of their cage ever, let alone in the house! I worried for the animals over at the shelter, but they were upwind, so probably ok, other than shaken up by the BOOM.
I did call my Mum to let her know we were all ok, because the company she works for has an office in NC, and she talks to them fairly regularly. As it was all over the 24 hour news networks, and all over the NC stations news, I didn’t want her to hear it from someone else that our town had blown up.
I checked out some of the pictures they had from the WCNC news helicopter, and as soon as I opened the website, there’s a topographical picture of it, and I said Holy Shit! It was leveled! I couldn’t believe it, it was almost completely obliterated, but strangely, there were barrels of something or other still standing. Very very weird! Check out the website http://www.wcnc.com/ their front page today is pretty much all about the explosion. You may have to register to read it, but its free.
The news helicopters are overhead again today, firefighters and environmental crews and chemical safety crews from Washington DC are there to find out if there are dangers to the area. So far, they’re warning towns to the east of us that their drinking water could be contaminated, but our water here in Morganton was upstream from the blast, and from the firefighters run off. One stream apparently had a rather large number of fish floating belly up late yesterday afternoon. The water there will be tested to find out if the fish kill was related to the explosion or not.
Local homes in the area have reported damage to windows and foundations. One woman called in to a local TV station saying that her air conditioning unit was blown out of the window and other windows were smashed. One article I read said one gentleman’s houses’ floors are separating. (I can empathise with that! Our floors are separating in spots too, and it can pinch your feet!) Some are angry that local surveyors have not gone in to check out local homes. I will bet there will be quite a lot of home owners suing the chemical plant for damages.
What gets me is that this chemical company had been fined several times over the years, and several thousands of dollars for non-compliance to quite a lot of environmental and safety measure requirements. Why had the city, county and state allowed them to remain in business? Luckily no one has died because of this, though there are at least 2 plant employees in critical condition, one with burns over 60% of his body. Most employees had got out before the explosion, or were close enough to the door to be thrown clear, but one guy just didn’t run fast enough, and was trapped for sometime before EMS could get to him. The firefighter (they call ‘em Public Safety here in Morganton. They do it all, police, fire, paramedic) interviewed who pulled him out said he’d never seen anyone burned so badly, and he’s been a firefighter for several years.
After a while the 24 hour newsnetworks went back to their regular programming, so I went back to my painting touch-ups in the bathroom, while James was at his doctor appointment. Later in the evening I made some chocolate pudding, and talked to my Mum and sister, then watched Corpse Bride. Hee hee hee, that was funny. Especially the scene when she gives him his dead dog back, and the dog starts barking. George always has to run to the TV when she hears a dog barking, but she couldn’t quite figure this one out, because it had no skin or fur. She sat down to watch, with her head tilted to the side, looking very confused. I laughed and laughed! *snarf*
At sometime shortly after 10pm, the dogs said they wanted out, so I opened the door, and we immediately smelled chemical smoke. The winds had changed direction, and now the cloud was in my backyard and it smelled rancid! Bleah! Bruno stuck his nose out, eyes wide and panicked and he ran to hide in the bedroom. He spent the next 2 hours pacing the house, worried that someone somewhere needed saving and he couldn’t get to them, and he probably also had to go pee but he refused to go out in the stench.
James was at work, and when he got home we took the dogs out on the leashes to pee, it was the only way to get Bruno out. He told me that he had made a bunch of pizzas and delivered them to the firefighters at the scene, and to the Red Cross, who had setup a refuge at the rec centre for voluntary evacuees. Quite a lot of the firefighters were there for more than 12 hours, and possibly through the night. The next shift is there today, still dousing hot spots, and clearing debris so the investigators can get in to find out what caused the blast.
Well, that was our excitement for the year! I think next time we move, we’ll make sure we’re further away from chemical plants than just 1 km! Its way too scary to be so dang close. And way too smelly. Phew! ¶ 12:08 PM
