Explosions at Eastman Chemical in Kingsport

Hey, girl. Good to see you! Hope all is well.

As I understand it, there were no injuries beyond requiring first aid. I think my buddy was right. I think the area dodged a bullet on this one, not only pertaining to minimal injuries but also in terms of economics. Eastman is a Fortune 500 company whose headquarters is in Kingsport, and st around 7,000 employees (not including thousands of contractor employees), it's by far the largest manufacturing employer in Northeastern TN and Southwestern VA. Most of those are good paying jobs too.

 

Hello! Not forgotten you, you'll get a shipment of deer jerky pretty soon I'm not sure what Wackers deal is, I know that it's a a concern.

 

Sa.....weeet!

Thanks!

 

You ate your pet!

 

Ha!! He's good he's got a pretty pink collar and a bun of feed inside the barn.

 

Heard the news. Keep safe there.

 

That shelter in place was precautionary. The gas cloud there, while dangerous if you're up close and get a concentrated amount of it, wouldn't be lethal or cause much more than singed nostril hairs once it made it out of the plant, IMO.

 

I'm not going to go as far as to say that there's nothing wrong with Wacker or else I'd still be working there. But I genuinely think they take the issues seriously, it's a very important plant and they have a LOT invested into that plant. The problem is a lot of the subcontractors they had during the construction phase were terrible about meeting deadlines. The last week I was there we were having to fix construction issues that were screwing with the process and nearly causing us to shutdown the plant. I figured that they'd probably fixed the lions share of the issues, at least in my department, but then the explosion happened. And I think that's why the plant is shutdown.

 

Supposedly it was "mostly" CO & hydrogen gas venting. That's according to the Eastman press conference at 5ish yesterday. I recall CO having potential for some serious negative effects and also fairly sure that hydrogen can be fairly explosive. But I'm only an amateur chemist that has stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.

I don't trust those types to be up front about anything especially when liability is at stake. It's all about the money after all. Several area EMAs were trying to get info about the situation (which is their jobs), but received little to no cooperation. They have never been very forthcoming from several red water fish kills directly below their discharges either.

 

I guess my worry is the subsequent small leaks and such. I am only 4-5 miles from there as the crow flies, and if a big one happened and a south wind caught it, I'd be really worried

 

If a big one happened they have the jet spray trucks to take care of it. I worked with a few Germans and their plants are more antiquated and they've never talked about having such a big problem that it escaped the plant. It's generally well run. And like I said, they're shut down to take care of any issues so I'm sure they'll go over every inch of the process to make sure it's right and constructed properly.

 

Those are the products of coal gasification (syngas). Honestly as releases go not that bad unless you are right in the area/building.

 

Thank you, you really have alleviated some concerns