A fire at a southeast Texas chemical plant east of Houston continued to burn on Thursday, a day after a series of explosions triggered evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people. A 10 p.m. curfew is in effect and officials don't know when residents can return to their homes, AP reports.
EXPLOSION CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Here's a look at the moment the second explosion occurred at the East Texas plant, where a fire has been burning since early Wednesday morning. https://t.co/E3BYMOoF95 pic.twitter.com/EBLy7Ae0uR
— FOX26Houston (@FOX26Houston) November 27, 2019
Where it stands: The current evacuation order in Port Neches, Texas is in effect within a 4-mile radius from the TPC Group chemical plant, per AP.
What happened: The first blast on Wednesday wounded three plant employees as it "blew out the windows and doors of nearby homes" and sent toxic plumes into the air just after 1 a.m. Wednesday, per CBS News. Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick told a news conference it knocked out power to the plant, per CNN.
- A second explosion in the afternoon, 13 hours later, propelled a tower into the air "like a missile" toward the nearby Port Neches-Groves High School, Branick said.
- A third blast followed soon after, reports Fox26 Houston, which notes it's hard to say precisely how many explosions there have been, but several smaller ones have been noted.
- There were "a bunch" of towers left, Branick said, per the New York Times. "The concern is that if another one were to launch ... and it were to go into the tank farm, the results would be catastrophic," he said.
The big picture: Concerns have been raised about "the adequacy of health and safety regulations as well as the environmental effects from the accidents," after a string of fires and explosions at chemical plants in recent years, the Times notes.
- The NYT points to: an April fire at a Houston chemical facility that killed one person dead and critically wounded two others; a petrochemical plant blaze in March just outside the Houston metropolitan area that "burned for days;" a 2017 explosion during a tropical depression at a plant in Crosby, northeast of Houston; and a deadly blast at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant in 2013.
