New explosions expected at Crosby chemical plant

The Arkema chemical plant is flooded from Tropical Storm Harvey Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, in Crosby, Texas. Floodwaters from Harvey have knocked out power and generators that keep volatile organic peroxides stored at the facility cool. Employees and about 300 homes within a mile and half radius of the plant were evacuated Tuesday. less The Arkema chemical plant is flooded from Tropical Storm Harvey Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, in Crosby, Texas. Floodwaters from Harvey have knocked out power and generators that keep volatile organic peroxides ... more Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, Houston Chronicle Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 123 Caption Close New explosions expected at Crosby chemical plant 1 / 123 Back to Gallery

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-the-clock 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 six feet of floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey knocked out power and generators needed to keep the volatile organic peroxides — used in making plastics and rubber — 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."

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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 LATEST: Get rolling updates, newest photos on Harvey here

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.

Arkema's CEO Richard 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 facilities. 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.

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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 Harvey-related shutdowns and incidents, compared to 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.

'NO WAY TO PREVENT': Read Wednesday's update on the chemical plant's risk

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 two miles away are safe?" asked Alicia Garcia, who had recently returned to the family's home about four 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.





Harvey aftermath: Chemical plants imperiled Hurricane Harvey's winds and floodwaters have created emergencies at chemical facilities across the Houston area, from an Exxon Mobil roof collapse at its massive Baytown complex to the risk of an explosion at a chemical plant northeast of Houston. We combined our Chemical Breakdown risk map, based on a facility's potential for harm, with the region's 100-year floodplains. Type in a Harris County address in the search bar above to view which sites with "potential for harm" fall within a two-mile radius of that address.

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."

'IT'S TERRIFYING': Family returns to flooded home, finds new danger nearby

CHEMICAL BREAKDOWN: In November 2014, four workers died at a DuPont plant in La Porte after being exposed to a toxic gas. Responding emergency workers weren't sure what was in the air. The surrounding community wasn't, either. A Houston Chronicle investigation dives deep into Houston's hidden world of explosions and toxic releases and probes the regulatory failures that put us in jeopardy. Click here to read our series.