Explosions at Eastman Chemical in Kingsport

2 explosions at Eastman Chemical Co. in Kingsport. Reportedly in the Coal Gasification area.

 

Am going to post scattershot texts I'm getting.

 

-I (me) heard them & I'm 15 miles away or so.

- And I'm inside too. They just announced that ALL students & staff are to not go outside the building for any reason.....

- Dobyns-Bennett & all Kingsport City schools have been instructed to shelter in place. Area homes have been advised to shelter in place as well and turn off all HVAC units due to possible chemical release.

 

Wife is a nurse at the local hospital. They are on alert.

Explosion in the Coal Gasification area of the plant. I (me again) talked to one of my best friends who is a PhD chemist at the company. He's saying no injuries reported yet, but chemicals are venting into open atmosphere. Says looks like they got lucky.

 

Text from a friend:


Major hazardous vapor release per an employee.....

 

Stay inside

 

Where are you hearing no AC?

 

Don't have to worry about that. Contemplating raiding my extensive duct tape stash (I teach STEM remember) to seal all doors...

 

WJHL

 

And a statement from Eastman.

 

Ok. Just showed a map on WJHL of the area advised to turn off HVAC. Might be kn their website & could be helpful. I'm outside the no HVAC area.

 

I would think South winds would put my area in the clear.

 

I'd guess Sullivan South/Colonial Heights is in the no HVAC zone. Coal gasification is very close if I recall correctly.

 

Yes

 

Given the all clear where I'm at. Not sure about other places.

 

Watching videos of the explosion, and hard to believe there were no injuries.

 

Update:

Shelter in placeg no HVAC inside plant & a 1/2 mile radius of explosion. All vehicle & pedestrian traffic shut down within 1/2 mile of explosion.

Per Kingsport PD via WSXM

 

It's odd at times. Several years ago, I worked at a plant where there was an explosion in an operating unit. It was nowhere near the magnitude of this one, but it was still pretty ugly. Just by chance one of the operators took his samples a few minutes earlier than usual that night. Otherwise, he would have been pretty close to getting caught up in the blast.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

Sounds like the issues (different type of chemical explosion) my area is having with Wacker chemical here

 

Saw this somewhere.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/video/chemical-plant-explodes-tennessee-184207562.html