| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Home Front Economy | |
| Explosion rocks W. Texas oil refinery | |
| 2008-02-18 | |
The 8:30 a.m. blast sent black smoke billowing into the sky, shut down a major interstate and left residents rattled. "It was extremely scary. You shook you were so scared," said Laura McEwen, the wife of Mayor Russ McEwen who lives about two miles from the refinery. "Our walls shook. It jolted your bed. It was like an earthquake." John Moseley, managing editor of the Big Spring Herald whose downtown office is also about two miles from the refinery, said, "I thought it would knock the walls down." The refinery, owned by Dallas-based Alon USA, employs about 170 people and produces about 70,000 barrels a day. Company spokesman Blake Lewis said he didn't know how many people might be at the plant at the time. Lewis said the company had an unconfirmed report of an incident but did not know any details. A plant manager was on the way to the site, he said. Interstate 20 was shut down near the plant, Big Spring police spokesman Roger Sweatt said. His department didn't know of injuries. "There's some fire and a whole bunch of smoke," Sweatt said. Big Spring is about halfway between Dallas and El Paso. | |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #14 2008 Monday Texas Oil Refinery. A company spokesman says the fire was extinguished this afternoon. One company worker suffered burns and has been transported to a hospital in Lubbock. He is in satisfactory condition. Spokesman Blake Lewis says three injured contractors were treated at the scene -- one for a concussion, and two for possible hearing problems. A fifth person was injured when her car was struck by debris. She was treated and released from a hospital. ******************************************** 2005 Refinery Explosion Killed 15, Injured 170, Texas City |
| Posted by: RD 2008-02-18 23:35 |
| #13 Big Spring is about 15 miles north of Midland, which just MIGHT be "about halfway between Dallas and El Paso". Lazy journalist doesn't realize that it's over 600 miles from Dallas to El Paso. My road atlas says it's 295 miles from Dallas to Big Spring. To put it in perspective, it's about 600 miles from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-02-18 22:30 |
| #12 Not really. It depends on the layout of the land. I'd say it depends more on the inverse square law. But then I've experienced a fair number of explosions at various distances including an explosion 150 yards from the house in which I lived. 30 pounds of explosives at 150 yards rattles the windows big time but thats it. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2008-02-18 21:56 |
| #11 No TW, they build refineries near ports because of shipping costs, every mile further inland the refinery is from a convenient point (Port, pipeline, wellhead, etc.) is a higher cost to the refiners, which usualy cannot be recovered as the refiners don't really set the prices, market demand sets price. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-02-18 21:01 |
| #10 *giggle* And it is good to know when not to worry. Thanks from me, too, crosspatch. :-) Build more inland refineries? Perhaps when oil goes to $200/bbl. By then the pain might be enough for the Not In My Backyard types. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-02-18 20:19 |
| #9 breaks = brakes |
| Posted by: www 2008-02-18 19:53 |
| #8 A HUGE Oil well fire errupted right on the Texas side of the Texas - Mexican border. Boots and Coots, Red Adaire, all the famous oil well firefighters worked all day to put it out and were having no luck. On the other side of the mountain across the border in a little Mexican village, a Mexican ran from cantina to cantina telling all the men in the bar about the big Oil Well fire on the other side of the mountain the gringos were fighting. All the Mexicans ran out of the cantinas and piled on top of the village's old fire truck and raced up the mountain to get to the other side where the oil well fire was. A few minutes later the Texas oil well fire fighters heard "YIIPPPIIII!! YIPPPII!!! EEEEEEEHHH!!!" up above and watched an old fire truck covered in Mexicans race down the mountain towards the huge oil well fire. The Mexican fire truck crashed into the Oil Well with hoses spraying water at full blast and many Mexicans beating the well with toe sacks until the fire was out. The Oil Company executive could not believe his eyes, so he whips out his check book, walks over the the Mexicans and writes them a $500 check. He hands it to a Mexican who could speak English and says, "That was AWESOME amigos!! Here's $500 dollars! What are you going to do with that." The Mexican replied, "The FIRST thing we are going to do senore, is buy some DAMN BREAKS!!!" |
| Posted by: www 2008-02-18 19:52 |
| #7 Not really. It depends on the layout of the land. Nobody killed. One person apparently burned and sent to a burn unit, three others with some minor injuries but possibly not requiring hospitalization. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2008-02-18 18:35 |
| #6 When the hell are we going to build 4 more INLAND refineies, one near each coast but off the flood plains for hurricanes and eathquake zones (W E and Gulf), and one in the central US (pipelines from Alaska, elsewhere). |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-02-18 18:17 |
| #5 Mmm! It takes a pretty big boom to shake houses 2 miles away. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2008-02-18 17:13 |
| #4 "blasts" of one sort or another are fairly common at refineries Dittos crosspatch, used to live/work in Martinez Ca. booms along w/ black smoke are routine. |
| Posted by: RD 2008-02-18 16:05 |
| #3 A little more perspective... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_refineries |
| Posted by: Darrell 2008-02-18 15:38 |
| #2 Good to have knowledgeable RBers to sort these out - thanks. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-02-18 13:29 |
| #1 "blasts" of one sort or another are fairly common at refineries. Just because there was a blast doesn't mean there was any serious damage. They can happen when production is being shut down or started up. The shutting down of the freeway is probably an automatic "incident" response any time there is an unusual event at the plant. It is designed to minimize any exposure should anything toxic be released. I would imagine the freeway was reopened once air samples were taken. You are going to see a lot of these stories because a lot of lazy journos how have their Lexis Nexis filters set for "refinery explosion". Once there is one, they set their filters to get follow on information and they end up getting informed about every such event in the world so it will appear to the reader as if there is a rash of them when there really aren't any more than normal. It is like shark attacks in Florida a few years back. There weren't any more than usual but you heard about every single one for a while after a child got attacked. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2008-02-18 12:07 |