...and then all hell broke loose...
You're probably looking at this picture and saying to yourself, "What?? That looks pretty peaceful to me." Well...look at it again. That's a full moon and it brought the highlight of the week with it.

After I left the Milltown flooding I can down to Carefree, IN to get some gas at the local Pilot station. I didn't notice much as I passed the Jasper Engines and Transmission plant just north of I-64. A lot was going on, however, as I would find out on the way back. I got my gas and headed back north and was just passing the plant road when my cell phone went off. It was one of my editors and she yelled, "They just had an explosion at the Jasper plant!" I just simply said, "I'm going by there now!" So now it all starts up again as I make a quick turnaround and pull into the industrial road.

It was obvious something had gone very wrong as I followed the first firetruck into the industrial park entrance. Hundreds of people who had evacuated the building were coming down the road toward me as fire trucks raced to the plant. Most of the people didn't seem all that excited and I found out later that a lot of them at first thought it was just a drill. That wasn't the case this time, however, this was the real deal.

I looked toward the northwest corner of the building and could see a cloud of white smoke coming from the roof. This was not a cloud you would want to stand in for a very long time. It wasn't the same kind of smoke you would see if you were burning leaves. What I found out was that two chemicals, 1,400 gallons of Ferric Chloride and 2,400 gallons of Sulfuric Acid, had been accidently mixed together in one of the tanks that morning. After a few hours of sitting and churning the pressure built up enough to where the tank exploded and sending a toxic cloud across the building. As the workers evacuated many of them found themselves coughing and gagging as their bodies fought off the cloud of Hydrogen Chloride in the air.

Emergency units from five counties and Louisville raced to the scene. What was ironic was that just five months before the county had had a table top exercise for a hazardous materials emergency with several similarities. A command post was set up at the highway and also a decontamination station for those exposed to the cloud. Twenty-six people were run through the unit and transported to a local hospital. Most of the injuries were to the respiratory systems, which the chemical has the most affect on. Fortunately none of those injured received a large enough dose to be life threatening.

The power of the blast could be seen by looking at the southwest corner of the building where a large crack and bulge was very visible even from the highway more than a quarter-mile away. On the roof an air conditioning unit stack could be seen to be sunk down 4 - 5 feet. I found out later that a wall in the break room was also bulged a good distance from the explosion. Several cars were contaminated by chemical, as is visible on the black SUV in the picture. It was definitley a situation where the injury count could have been much much worse. Fortunately none of the injuries proved to be life threatening.

Later in the day the Louisville Fire Department haz-mat unit went to check the toxicity levels around the building as the smoke subsided. When they returned they brought back data that showed it was safe to move to the building. A structural engineer came to make sure the building was safe to move around in. Personally I would have waited till morning so that everything would have had time to completely settle down. But that's just me.

It's not sure what will happen next. OSHA is expected to come in and do an investigation into why things happened as they did. Personally I see problems for some people at the plant with an accident that was completely preventable...but that's for somebody else to decide. The good thing is the full moon is gone now with 3/4 of it showing this morning. I'm glad to see things settle down at least for a couple of days. Around here you never really know what's going to happen next.