It Blew Out Doors and Windows Three Miles Away
There was an explosion at a chemical plant in southeast Texas in the wee morning hours. It’s a damn miracle there were only 3 major injuries and some other minor injuries. However, we don’t know the full impact yet because the chemical released is known to cause cancer.
Welcome to unregulated Texas y’all.
William Joshua Hranicky, 20, of Port Neches, said that he told his brother goodnight and looked out the back window and “saw just orange.”
He said he told his brothers to run as the back doors blew open from the blast.
Macy Malin, 22, who was staying with a friend down the street from the site said the explosion woke her up. Her friend’s family, she said, were yelling and she realized that their home had been severely damaged.
“Their doors were blown open … doorknobs themselves were shot across rooms,” she said.
Malin then hurried home to Mauriceville, Texas, about 34 miles from the explosion, where she said her father was even woken up by the blast.
That blast? That’s just the sound of freedom, according to our Republican friends.
I’ve heard from most of my friends in the area.
No doubt the chemical plant involved will be begging the government to pay for the cleanup. Privatize your profits, socialize your losses.
1Another example of what the Blessed Molly Ivins used to call a “bidness” friendly environment. A little hard on actual humans, of course.
2As Gov Good hair once said Business is booming in Texas
3It shook our house but no damage. Lotsa folks closer had doors, garage doors and windows blown in. The high school which is almost right across the street from the chemical plant probably has quite a bit of damage. They’ll let the butadiene burn off instead of venting to atmosphere, until they can get close enough to shut off the fuel supply. If the equipment isn’t too damaged. If it is too damaged, they’ll probably have to let it all burn off.
4Perhaps they’ll rebuild next to a school…
5“the sound of freedom”
… and the toxins red glare
6the chemicals bursting in air
gave proof through the night
a Republican legislature was still there…
Just One Week After Trump Rolled Back Safety Measures, Chemical Plant Explosion Rocks Texas Town
“This facility has a track record of violating the Clean Air Act.”
“According to the EPA, the TPC Plant has been in non-compliance 12 separate quarters over the last 3 years, and has received 7 formal enforcement actions over the last 5 years. According to the TCEQ, the chemical of most concern is butadiene,” Fraser continued. “The TPC plant emitted 61,379 pounds of butadiene in 2018. Butadiene is a known human carcinogen.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/27/just-one-week-after-trump-rolled-back-safety-measures-chemical-plant-explosion-rocks
7And if you think that was a big explosion, just wait till Trump’s ego implodes.
8Wait for it! Wait…….
9Ken Paxton, Texas AG, will file suit against TPC so that surrounding communities and properties can’t, or won’t, sue to collect damages. That’s how Texas protects those businesses and keeps the public from really knowing what happened. Though ‘ol Ken did say recently that if you want to know what’s in a chemical plant, you have to wait ’til it blows up and then find out.
Now we know!
Just had a third explosion. The second around 4:00am and this one were smaller than the initial one around 1:00am.
10My dad retired from that facility in the early eighties.
It was built in the early forties as part of the industrial expansion for WW2
To all of you who were within hearing distance, glad you’re safe. May you stay that way.
11Did you see that tank shoot into the air – that looked like a rocket. Gov. Abbott year et al have certainly been quiet.
12“1,3-Butadiene is the organic compound with the formula (CH2=CH)2. It is a colorless gas that is easily condensed to a liquid. It is important industrially as a monomer in the production of synthetic rubber.”. Wiki Butadiene.
Cheap tires to take advantage of the cheap gasoline…
13Thanks for the bulletins, PP. Stay safe! I’d wish you a happy Thanksgiving if it wouldn’t sound sarcastic.
14“Nice little town ya got here, sure be a real shame if that poorly regulated and under inspected chemical plant across from the school were to blow up. Yessir, a real shame.”
Fat Donnie could make a fortune in East Texas selling “insurance.”
15Two interesting quotes from CNN:
“the chemical levels in the air tracked about 4 miles away from the explosion are ‘well below concentrations of health concern or odorous levels,’ the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said.”
but in the same article, the company that owns the plant says:
“In the hours following the first explosion, black debris floated in the air, CNN affiliate KTRK reported. ‘The black stuff floating, don’t touch it,’ Troy Monk, TPC Group’s director of health safety and security, said.”
So: there’s nothing to worry about, it doesn’t even smell bad. Plus: holy moly, don’t touch the black stuff floating around in the air!
16y’all, there are just too damn many places in this country being turned into ‘cancer alleys”. One of them is Louisiana. The output from the chemical plants, especially around Baton Rouge, have killed people right and left. And left is no hiding place, as in “I left the area”. Once you have been exposed and something is growing sneakily in your body, it will only mature at some time in your life and do you in. And if you already have cancer and it is in its lazy state, an environmental trigger like polluted air, water, ground is all it will take to put you into Stage 4 right quick.
17I wish the community members and first responders a quick and safe resolution to this horror. regarding the messaging that the community is getting, while something might not meet the definition of a hazard…it can still precipitate nuisance symptoms such as headache, nausea, respiratory irritation. Think how miserable seasonal allergies can get. Also, there’s NO WAY the muck spewing from this incident is not hazardous. be safe everyone!
18This might get me in trouble at the salon, but as a chemical engineer and current resident of China, I’m going to ask for a little forbearance before judging this plant too harshly, especially the people who work there and run it day to day.
19• Thankfully no one was killed. I don’t think that was completely luck. If they still did things the way the US did 30 years ago or China still does, there would have been deaths.
• More than just cheap tires, if we didn’t have butadiene for synthetic rubber, we’d have probably cut down all of the rain forests to plant rubber trees by now.
• The stuff spewing out of the plant now is no doubt bad, but it’s only for a few days. I’d worry more about what leaks out daily for years. I’m all for strict enforcement of environmental standards. Good companies meet the requirements. Companies that neglect emissions requirements should be fined out of business. Long-term, weak enforcement by Texas is likely worse for public health than what is emitted during the occasional disaster.
•In 2012, TPC Group was bought by SK Capital Partners, a private equity firm. The investigation needs to look at whether SK Capital was squeezing all of the cash out the business and skimping on maintenance, manpower, and state of the art safety systems.
I’m lucky that the company I work for still has more engineers than finance guys in top management. When the finance wizards take over, you get the 737 MAX.