Round-the-clock watch begins after first of nine failing freezer trailer units explodes
The first of nine failing freezer trailers filled with volatile chemicals exploded early Thursday at the problem-plagued Arkema plant in Crosby, sending a plume of black smoke into the community east of Houston and setting off a round-theclock watch for inevitable explosions to come.
The initial blast about 1 a.m. Thursday sent 15 Harris County sheriff’s deputies to the hospital after they inhaled fumes and got smoke in their eyes, but all were discharged by Thursday afternoon.
Crosby officials had been bracing for days for explosions at the plant after 6 feet of floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey knocked out power and generators needed to keep the volatile organic peroxides — used to make plastics — stored at the facility cool. The chemicals explode if they get too warm, officials said.
The explosion left unanswered questions about how contingency plans failed to keep the chemicals cool and how dangerous the fallout could be to a sprawling metropolitan area recovering from the biggest rain event in continental U.S. history.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long on Thursday called the plume “incredibly dangerous.”
Arkema President Richard Rennard said the health effects are relative.
“They’re noxious, certainly,” Rennard said. “If you breathe in the smoke, it’s going to irritate your lungs.”
Arkema CEO Rich Rowe said earlier in the week that the explosions could not be stopped.
“There is no way to prevent an explosion or fire,” Rowe said.
The company has a history of regulatory problems.
In 2006, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality cited Arkema for a fire caused by improperly stored organic peroxides. In 2011, the same plant was cited for failing to maintain proper temperatures of its thermal oxidizer.
In 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Arkema $91,724 after finding 10 violations at the Crosby site, many involving the mishandling of hazardous materials.
Rowe said earlier this week that the company spent millions of dollars on upgrades after the fines and believed all issues cited in the inspections had been addressed.
The Houston area is home to more than 2,500 chemical plants. An investigation by the Houston Chronicle in 2016 found 55 facilities — including Arkema — with a high potential for harm to the public, based on an analysis performed in conjunction with the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University. The study factored risks based on the amount and type of dangerous chemicals on site and their proximity to the public.
At least 13 of the facilities with the highest potential for harm lie within the 100-year flood plain. The Arkema plant lies within the 500-year flood plain, according to a Chronicle analysis.
Arkema officials wouldn’t say the company had the ability to neutralize the chemicals before the situation became so volatile, and wouldn’t answer questions about whether the back-up generators were elevated before the storm hit the area late Saturday.
Rennard said that other highly toxic chemicals on the site were in a “remote location,” far from the exploding organic peroxides. Officials had not provided a requested map of the facility by late Thursday.
Safety board’s orders
The Arkema plant lost power late Monday, knocking out the primary supply and back-up generators and forcing employees to move the organic peroxides into 18-wheeler box vans with cooling systems.
One employee was evacuated Monday night. Eleven other employees were evacuated Tuesday when the refrigeration in the back-up containers also began to fail.
Local officials ordered the evacuation of residents after seeing the chemical inventories for the facility, which the company has not publicly released. Company officials said they expected the refrigeration to fail in all the trailers and that additional explosions were inevitable.
The incident came as chemical facilities throughout the Houston area began drying out and restarting facilities that had been shut down as Hurricane Harvey approached last week.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board issued a safety alert Thursday urging the facilities to take special precautions as they resumed operations.
“Restarting a refinery poses a significant safety risk,” CSB Chairperson Vanessa Allen Sutherland said in a statement. “When operators follow established startup procedures and checklists, it reduces the risk to a catastrophic accident that could cost lives and incur substantial product disruptions.”
The environmental damage from those startups can be enormous.
About 2 million pounds of emissions have been released during Harveyrelated shutdowns and incidents, compared with more than 5.2 million pounds all of last year. Emissions from Aug. 23 through Monday in the Houston area represented nearly 40 percent of the region’s releases for all of 2016, based on pounds of chemicals, according to Luke Metzger, director of the advocacy group Environment Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a relaxing of state environmental reporting laws during Hurricane Harvey, and companies are still reporting leaks and other incidents voluntarily, according to TCEQ spokesperson Andrea Morrow.
Among those voluntary reports was a roof collapse at an ExxonMobil facility in Baytown that caused the release of more than 12,000 pounds of material.
In Crosby, neighbors in and around the evacuation zone remained worried Thursday, saying they had received little official information and a lack of a clear perimeter.
“But homes 2 miles away are safe?” asked Alicia Garcia, who had recently returned to the family’s home about 4 miles away after evacuating Sunday because of flooding. At least one couple didn’t leave. Leo and Lajayne Opelia, who are in their 70s, texted friend Frances Breaux that they intended to stay.
“And if they didn’t make it, they loved us,” Breaux said.
Unanswered questions
Deputies wouldn’t allow Breaux into the neighborhood Thursday to check on the couple.
“You know how older people are,” she said. “They just don’t want to leave their place.”
Derek Davis, 36, lives outside the evacuation zone but shared his neighbors’ questions and concerns.
“What was the basis of the blast zone? How was that calculated? How was safety taken into consideration? Do they expect a mile-and-a-half radius? Are they taking a fudge factor into account? Did they consider the wind? What was the fail-safe program they had?” he asked. “It seems like they’re trying to save the product and risk the residents.”