Concerns about air quality lingered Wednesday following a major early morning explosion at a chemical plant in Port Neches, Texas that shot a fireball into the sky.
The disaster at the TPC Group-owned facility roughly 94 miles west of Houston took place a week after the Trump administration rolled back safety rules meant to protect workers and people who live near chemical plants. In light of the timing, Catherine Fraser, Environment Texas’s clean air associate, called Wednesday’s explosion “a timely warning that state and federal officials need to do more to keep communities safe.”
“It shook our house twice,” Shawn Dunlap, who lives in neighboring Nederland, told NBC News. “It was just like a bomb going off.” Twitter user @souljaslim52 put it another way: “shit blew tf up.”
According to a statement from TPC Group, the incident occurred at 1:00am local time. The company said it “cannot speak to the cause of the incident or the extent of damage.” The Port Neches Police Department, in a statement posted to Facebook, said, “There’s extensive damage throughout the city.”
Area residents reported damaged homes, with some suffering shattered glass and blown-off doors. Three workers at the plant also suffered minor injuries, the company said.
“Throughout the morning more booms could be heard in […]
Regulations are a very important part of the political solution and it is morally corrupt not to use them with the full backup of the US government.