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Residents near a chemical plant in Crosby, TX — approximately 25 miles (40km) northeast of Houston — have been evacuated due to the possibility of an explosion:
Arkema SA expects chemicals to catch fire or explode at its heavily flooded plant in Crosby, Texas in the coming days because the plant has lost power to its chemical cooling systems, a company official said on Wednesday.
The company evacuated remaining workers on Tuesday, and Harris County ordered the evacuation of residents in a 1.5-mile(2.4-km) radius of the plant that makes organic peroxides used in the production of plastic resins, polystyrene, paints and other products.
Richard Rowe, chief executive officer of Arkema's North America unit, told reporters that chemicals on the site will catch fire and explode if they are not properly cooled.
Arkema expects that to happen within the next six days as temperatures rise. He said the company has no way to prevent that because the plant is swamped by about 6 feet (1.83 m) of water due to flooding from Harvey, which came ashore in Texas last week as a powerful Category 4 hurricane.
"Materials could now explode and cause a subsequent and intense fire. The high water that exists on site, and the lack of power, leave us with no way to prevent it," Rowe said. He said he believes a fire would be "largely sustained on our site but we are trying to be conservative."
From the company's web site:
Our Crosby facility makes organic peroxides, a family of compounds that are used in everything from making pharmaceuticals to construction materials. But organic peroxides may burn if not stored and handled under the right conditions. At Crosby, we prepared for what we recognized could be a worst case scenario. We had redundant contingency plans in place. Right now, we have an unprecedented 6 feet of water at the plant. We have lost primary power and two sources of emergency backup power. As a result, we have lost critical refrigeration of the materials on site that could now explode and cause a subsequent intense fire. The high water and lack of power leave us with no way to prevent it. We have evacuated our personnel for their own safety. The federal, state and local authorities were contacted a few days ago, and we are working very closely with them to manage this matter. They have ordered the surrounding community to be evacuated, too.
Also at ABC and The Washington Post.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:20AM (7 children)
Neither was Fukushima. They also had backup generators. They thought that they had planned sufficiently for tsunamis.
Perhaps the real failure was building this plant somewhere that could be flooded.
(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Thursday August 31 2017, @08:51AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @09:23AM (2 children)
So.... basically anywhere on Earth?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:10AM (1 child)
No.
Many places on earth will not be flooded, even if/when polar ice caps melt.
I live near a former swamp that was built-over into a residential suburb by aggressive developers and lax town planners. This is near the Great Lakes which (primevally) were much larger. Those streets still can be flooded, although they have storm sewers and are generally OK. I'm in an older part of town (with a plain old house) on top of a nearby rock ledge, about 50 feet higher. Even with 4-5 feet of rain (like Houston), I'm going to be dry, and my basement will be dry too.
I don't know the topography near Houston, but the reports I've seen say that 30% of the city is flooded. That means that 70% is a little higher (locally, there is also the question of where the water can drain). One of those high spots (~10 feet higher) would have been a better place for the chemical plant, but (as others have said), no one expected this much rain when the plant was built.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:30PM
The high spots have often been taken for a while, and building the ugly plants lower and closer to major infrastructure is usually the better and cheaper move.
High points are usually not as flat, which changes the building costs by a few millions.
Given the population size, you gotta build plants somewhere outside of the Rockies slopes anyway, then you have to hedge your bets against 500-year disasters. The perfect spot goes the highest value production (of the day), and so on...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 31 2017, @01:19PM
Locations aren't very flexible unlike disaster planning. What are we supposed to do here? Build all human industry in the mythical places where disasters never happen and NIMBYs don't live? In the real world, every location will have drawbacks.
(Score: 4, Funny) by richtopia on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:06PM (1 child)
When I read this, I start substituting other potential disasters, like:
Perhaps the real failure was building this plant somewhere that could see tornadoes.
Perhaps the real failure was building this plant somewhere that could have mudslides.
Perhaps the real failure was building this plant somewhere that could see a dormant volcano.
Perhaps the real failure was building this plant somewhere that could experience earthquakes.
Perhaps the real failure was building this plant somewhere that could have drought induced forest fires.
Perhaps the real failure was building this plant somewhere that could be hit with a meteorite.
Yes, we need to mitigate for disasters in an area. However to build everything completely isolated from disasters is effectively impossible. I suppose we could put all of industry in Yucca Mountain now that we don't plan on putting nuclear waste inside...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 31 2017, @09:07PM
Yeah, especially if you need access to one of the US's busiest seaports. [wikipedia.org]