Chem plant explodes in KC

[Luke]

All the local TV channels are covering story. No injuries at this time. Worlds largest manufacturing plant of its type. They are saying a lot of petroleum based chemicals made there. Smoke cloud moving to downtown. I don't have link yet.

[Luke]

KMBC channel 9, ABC seems to have best coverage. They are showing material that is falling out of smoke plume. It looks like 2X3 pieces of "4th of July snakes" This could be bad!
Police are asking people to move away from the cloud and not to breathe it. They have evacuated a 1 square mile area around the Chem-Central plant.

[Luke]

Sorry, meant to type Plant, not plane,

http://www.kctv.com/

[Aplomb]

Thanks, Luke. Here's the latest:
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...l/16645161.htm

Chemical plant explosion rocks east Kansas City

From The Star’s staff

• Photo gallery
• Blast rocks chemical plant | video
• Schools evcuated after explosion | video
• School evacuations
• What are the health effects?
• Share your experience and your photos
• Traffic closures
• ChemCentral, site of the blast
• Company had fire at Seattle plant in 1999
• Map locating ChemCentral
• Explosion's impact felt across KC | video

Multiple explosions at a chemical plant shook the Kansas City’s East Bottoms area about 2:15 this afternoon.


The fire from the explosions at the Chemcentral plant, 910 N. Prospect, sent a huge plume of black smoke drifting over the area north and east of downtown near the Missouri River.


The company distributes dozens of products, including waxes, resins, solvents, acids, urethane polyols, pigments and silicones. According to the company Web site, not all products are available at each of its outlets nationwide, and it was not immediately clear what chemicals were involved in the blast and fire.


Minutes after the initial blast, flames began poking through the thick black plume that towered over the industrial district all afternoon and into the night.


At North Olive and Front streets, just four blocks from the plant, Chemcentral employee Bill Rohde emerged, shaken, from the complex. He said the initial blast knocked him off his feet.


Rohde said he had no idea how the fire began.


He said chemicals stored at the facility included mineral spirits, and numerous other more toxic chemicals. He said he was concerned that nearby rail cars filled with chemicals would also catch fire or explode.


Rohde said the worldwide company, which has been referred to in lawsuits as the world’s largest privately held distributor of industrial chemicals, had numerous stationary tanks at its local facility.


He said he was anxious about his nine co-workers at the plant, but he could not get close enough to check on their welfare. Soon after, authorities established a half-mile safety perimeter around the plant. A Kansas City police officer warned Rohde, “If you want to return to work here someday, you better move a half mile away.”


Dan Brennan, an attorney for Chemcentral Inc., based in Bedford Park, Ill., told The Associated Press it was not immediately clear what caused the explosions at the plant.


“To the best of my knowledge there have been no injuries,” Brennan said. “Everyone was evacuated safely.” Firefighters said the Chemcentral building was stacked to the roof with 55-gallon barrels of chemicals, and smaller explosions continued almost two hours after the fire started. Fire crews went into a defensive mode and pulled back six blocks from the blaze.
The flames spread to nearby buildings, including a small house. As smoke drifted to the southwest, firefighters evacuated businesses and homes more than a mile around the blast site.


Firefighters are technically not fighting the fire at this point.


“The only safe way to handle this fire is to let it burn itself out,” Fire Chief Smokey Dyer said during a news conference about 4 p.m. at Kansas City’s Emergency Operations Center. “I think the best-case scenario is the fire would burn itself out tomorrow morning.”


But it could take the fire 72 hours to burn itself out, Dyer said.


The fire was reported about 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, Dyer said during the afternoon news conference. Within minutes of their arrival, firefighters ratcheted the call from a first to a second alarm. Within 10 minutes, Dyer said, the department decided to activate the city’s Emergency Operations Center and call in other departments to help with the situation.


The first firefighters hoped to control the blaze, but soon learned they could not. “We then went into a defensive mode and started utilizing all our resources for evacuation,” Dyer said.


City officials urged people who live near the plant to go to a Red Cross shelter at North Kansas City High School, 620 N.E. 23rd St. ATA buses were at Nicholson and Indiana to evacuate anyone who lacks transportation.


Early reports indicate the fire does not pose a significant health risk, Dyer said. “None of these are what those of us in the field would call exotic chemicals. … None of these have a high rating for toxicity.”


That said, city officials also urged the public to avoid the area. “Obviously, it doesn’t help us to have people down there gawking,” said Rex Archer, head of the city’s health department.


“You wouldn’t want your children out in it,” Dyer said.


One immediate concern was three 30,000-gallon railroad cars parked on a nearby line. They were clearly marked as containing flammable materials. Dyer said the department was worried they could catch fire and start a blevy – “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.” The railroad car would become “a burning rocket that can move as far as a mile,” Dyer said.


Dyer hadn’t seen the facility’s recent safety records, but officials didn’t consider it a problem facility. “Generally, our anecdotal memory in the EOC is this is a very well-run facility with a pretty darn good safety record.”


The area itself has been a concern for the fire department, though, because single-family homes are across the street from large industrial buildings in some places, Dyer said.


Traffic was clogged on Chouteau Trafficway. All variety of helicopters swarmed the area as the massive fire raged. Flames a hundred feet high and fireballs could be seen shooting from it at times.


About 10 employees were at the Great Central Truck Services facility when the explosion occurred, according to president Mike Colmen, 50.


“We heard a loud explosion, like an airplane crash,” Colmen said. “Windows shook, the building shook, like a bomb from a war zone. I hit the ground. Other guys ducked. There was about a 100 foot fireball in the sky.”
He said they evacuated the business.


Harold Craig was in his home on Garland Avenue about half a block south of the plant when the explosion happened.


It almost knocked him out of his chair, he said. That surprised him, he said, because his house is made of concrete and very sturdy.


“It was pretty jarring,” said Craig, 83. “It almost shook my house.”


His daughter, who lives near Blue Ridge Boulevard and Interstate 70, heard the explosion that far east, he said.


Living that close to the chemical company always made him nervous.


“We’ve always dreaded” an explosion like this, he said.


Jackson County Legislator Henry Rizzo and his son, J.J., were driving along Front Street a few blocks from the plant when they heard and felt the explosion.


“We pulled the car over because we thought we had dropped an axle,” he said. “It felt like we had lost a wheel, which I thought was odd because it’s a brand-new car. Then we saw the black plume go up. I thought it was a terrorist attack.”


Rizzo said his wife, Silvia, a county employee, called concerned due to the lights flickering at the downtown courthouse.


KCP&L spokesman Tom Robinson said a transmission line near the fire was disabled, which briefly caused some power disruption and flickering lights around downtown. But that transmission line was successfully bypassed, he said, and the utility did not expect power to be further disrupted outside the immediate vicinity of the fire.


A Kansas City, Kan., Board of Public Utilities spokeswoman said the utility experienced a “sag” in electricity at about the time of the explosion. Susan Allen said that a disruption in a Kansas City Power & Light line had briefly affected power distribution in Kansas City, Kan.


The Enviromental Protection Agency and health officials from the city of Kansas City were monitoring the air for chemical content.


An EPA plane was heading to Kansas City with monitoring equipment to check the air quality.


The Jackson County courthouse closed early due to the plant explosion.
County spokesman Calvin Williford said employees were being sent home around 4 p.m. today. He said it should have minimal impact on the public since it was near the end of the work day.


“We are shutting down early based on a prudent approach,” he said.
Williford said he did not know whether county officials made this decision based on the advice and recommendation of any federal, state or local official. He emphasized that this was not an evacuation.


The Kansas City, Kan., Fire Department reported that it had hazardous materials units on standby.


Battalion Chief Kevin Shirley said it’s possible that the cold weather could help the smoke disperse. “That’s an advantage for us at this time,” he said.
Shirley said the black cloud floating away from the scene is mostly ash but would have some chemicals and that condensation could bring droplets to the ground.


“People are best off inside when something like this is going on,” Shirley advised. “Not to alarm them, but stay inside and keep track of the news.”


He said the fire departments on the scene were wise to keep a distance from the fire.


“Rushing in there and trying to put this out, explosions can occur, spills can occur and that is a particular thing than can kill you later in life once you are exposed,” Shirley said.


A section of the Missouri River was closed about 4 p.m., said U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Nyx Cangemi.


The section won’t be reopened until the port captain deems it safe, Cangemi said.


As of 4 p.m., the smoke cloud had not affected air traffic at the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, said Kansas City Aviation Department spokesman Joe McBride. But airport and air traffic control officials are monitoring the situation.

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Staff writers John Shultz, Mike McGraw, Tony Rizzo, Steve Everly, Malcolm Garcia, Lynn Franey, DeAnn Smith, Joyce Tsai, Randy Heaster and Mark Wiebe contributed to this report.