Sooner or later, most Kanawha Valley residents know it's going to happen. A flash of light in the middle of the night, the thunderous rumbling of an explosion, and the gnawing fear that a deadly chemical might have just been released into the atmosphere from a chemical accident.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Sooner or later, most Kanawha Valley residents know it's going to happen.
A flash of light in the middle of the night, the thunderous rumbling of an explosion, and the gnawing fear that a deadly chemical might have just been released into the atmosphere from a chemical accident.
Thursday was such a night, when a massive explosion ripped through a storage tank at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute. Witnesses said the flash from the blast could be seen as far away as Cross Lanes, and the explosion heard at least as far away as Mink Shoals.
At West Virginia State University, next door to Bayer CropScience and virtually at ground zero for the explosion, junior Corey Cole was watching football in his dormitory with five friends when the door suddenly slammed hard. It was 10:25 p.m.
Cole, an offensive tackle for the West Virginia State football team, at first thought someone was playing a prank with the door, but then he and his friends went outside. One of his buddies reported seeing a mushroom cloud, but all Cole could see was a huge pall of smoke. Then the sirens started going off, and Cole and his friends knew there had been an explosion at the chemical plant.
"I was terrified," said Cole. "Everybody was scared. You didn't know what kind of chemical it was."
On their own initiative, Cole and his friends rushed back inside and sheltered in place, stuffing wet towels into the seam of a window that wouldn't close, turning off air-conditioners and taping up windows. After the official shelter in place was lifted and roads reopened at about 3 a.m., Cole went to stay with a friend in South Charleston.
At Diehl's Restaurant in Nitro, a few miles downstream from Institute, the explosion was a major topic of conversation on Friday. Waitress Jean Hensley said the explosion shook her home in St. Albans, about six miles away.
"I thought a train had wrecked or something," Hensley said. "Later on in the evening, there was a faint odor. You could almost taste it."
Chris Dolin of Cross Lanes said he saw the explosion from his house.
On Friday afternoon, Dolin was sitting with his cousin, Dale Dolin, and friend Caleb Brown outside a Nitro antique store. When the tank exploded, Chris Dolin said he saw the flash about 10 seconds before he heard the explosion.
"I though it was a lot farther off than it was, because of the sound," he said.
Darcie Boschee also saw the flash from her home on Baier Street, above Kanawha Terrace in St. Albans.
"It was like a big lightning strike," said Boschee, who was watching television when the tank exploded.
"I saw a big flash behind me, and kind of felt and heard a boom at the same time," she said. She said her neighbors thought a tree had fallen on their house.
Boschee said she got a phone call about the explosion from the county's emergency response system about 12:30 a.m., but by that time, she and her husband had already decided to shelter in place and sit tight.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Sooner or later, most Kanawha Valley residents know it's going to happen.
A flash of light in the middle of the night, the thunderous rumbling of an explosion, and the gnawing fear that a deadly chemical might have just been released into the atmosphere from a chemical accident.
Thursday was such a night, when a massive explosion ripped through a storage tank at the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute. Witnesses said the flash from the blast could be seen as far away as Cross Lanes, and the explosion heard at least as far away as Mink Shoals.
At West Virginia State University, next door to Bayer CropScience and virtually at ground zero for the explosion, junior Corey Cole was watching football in his dormitory with five friends when the door suddenly slammed hard. It was 10:25 p.m.
Cole, an offensive tackle for the West Virginia State football team, at first thought someone was playing a prank with the door, but then he and his friends went outside. One of his buddies reported seeing a mushroom cloud, but all Cole could see was a huge pall of smoke. Then the sirens started going off, and Cole and his friends knew there had been an explosion at the chemical plant.
"I was terrified," said Cole. "Everybody was scared. You didn't know what kind of chemical it was."
On their own initiative, Cole and his friends rushed back inside and sheltered in place, stuffing wet towels into the seam of a window that wouldn't close, turning off air-conditioners and taping up windows. After the official shelter in place was lifted and roads reopened at about 3 a.m., Cole went to stay with a friend in South Charleston.
At Diehl's Restaurant in Nitro, a few miles downstream from Institute, the explosion was a major topic of conversation on Friday. Waitress Jean Hensley said the explosion shook her home in St. Albans, about six miles away.
"I thought a train had wrecked or something," Hensley said. "Later on in the evening, there was a faint odor. You could almost taste it."
Chris Dolin of Cross Lanes said he saw the explosion from his house.
On Friday afternoon, Dolin was sitting with his cousin, Dale Dolin, and friend Caleb Brown outside a Nitro antique store. When the tank exploded, Chris Dolin said he saw the flash about 10 seconds before he heard the explosion.
"I though it was a lot farther off than it was, because of the sound," he said.
Darcie Boschee also saw the flash from her home on Baier Street, above Kanawha Terrace in St. Albans.
"It was like a big lightning strike," said Boschee, who was watching television when the tank exploded.
"I saw a big flash behind me, and kind of felt and heard a boom at the same time," she said. She said her neighbors thought a tree had fallen on their house.
Boschee said she got a phone call about the explosion from the county's emergency response system about 12:30 a.m., but by that time, she and her husband had already decided to shelter in place and sit tight.
"We decided we'd go to sleep and hope we were alive in the morning," she said.
Not everyone heard the blast. Aaron Diehl, son of restaurant owner Keith Diehl, had been working since about 5 a.m. Thursday morning and was asleep at his home about a block away from the landmark restaurant when the tank blew up.
"I got home at 9:30, and it was lights out for me," Diehl said. "I didn't hear anything."
Dale Dolin, who also lives in Nitro, didn't hear the blast either. Dolin said he didn't know anything was wrong Thursday until sirens started going off about an hour after the blast.
Thursday night's emergency was a stark reminder of the dangers of living in a narrow river valley lined with chemical plants, and of the fear in the back of many residents' minds that a Bhopal-like disaster could strike Kanawha County.
Twenty-four years ago, Valley residents learned about a toxic chemical called methyl isocyanate, or MIC, when a runaway reaction and leak of the material killed thousands of people who lived near a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India.
In Institute, residents still live with the thought that four times the MIC that leaked in Bhopal is stored at Bayer's Institute facility.
Most of the chemical is tucked away in an underground tank. Company officials have always insisted that their storage system - with multiple layers of protections and alarms - is safe. In June 1994, though, a worst-case leak scenario published by then-owner Rhone-Poulenc Ag Co. found that a disastrous leak of all 253,600 pounds of MIC - the most the tank could store at one time - could kill people nearly 10 miles away from the plant. Today, nearly 26,000 people live within a three-mile radius around the plant, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
For years, local and international activists have urged various plant owners to reduce their stockpile of MIC. Plant operators responded that the number and variety of uses for MIC at Institute hampers their ability to do so. At its own plants in Germany and Belgium, though, Bayer never stored large quantities of MIC. Instead, Bayer made and used the chemical as it was needed.
The presence of MIC at the Institute plant is the reason some county residents wanted quicker notification of what had happened at the plant Thursday and the chemicals involved.
"I think, since it's a chemical plant, they should have let us know what it was," said Hensley.
Some Valley residents believe the response to the emergency was appropriate. "I think it was an excellent response time," said Chris Dolin.
Dolin said he was concerned about the explosion and the presence of chemicals at Bayer CropScience, but not enough to fault plant officials for the way they handled the emergency.
"The plant is jobs," he said. "It was an accident."
Reach Rusty Marks at rustyma...@wvgazette.com">rustyma...@wvgazette.com or 348-1215.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.
Post a comment
Most of the chemical is tucked away in an underground tank. Company officials have always insisted that their storage system - with multiple layers of protections and alarms - is safe. In June 1994, though, a worst-case leak scenario published by then-owner Rhone-Poulenc Ag Co. found that a disastrous leak of all 253,600 pounds of MIC - the most the tank could store at one time - could kill people nearly 10 miles away from the plant. Today, nearly 26,000 people live within a three-mile radius around the plant, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
----*****----
Is 26,000 people considered 'Collateral Damage' if the MIC stored by Bayer is released??
Very simply put - the chemical company could have notified authorities what exploded, what was leaking, and the effects of what was released into the atmosphere when the explosion occured. They know where every chemical is located on their site.
Instead of "Think safety for community"...it's "Oh crap how do we damage control this one?"
Could have been worse. Our prayers go out to the families of the injured worker and the man who passed away.