One worker was killed and two others were critically injured in a massive explosion at a chemical plant near Houston on Tuesday. The fire at the KMCO chemical processing plant in Crosby was ignited by a flammable gas called isobutylene.
Some employees working at the plant narrowly escaped danger. Contractors Brian Balcerowicz and Cesar Mendoza felt the blast from an explosion-proof control room located feet from harm’s way, Balcerowicz told the Houston Chronicle.
Nearby, residents felt their homes rattle from the force of the explosion. Brandy Lyons, who lives less than a quarter-mile from the plant, at first thought someone’s car had slammed into her house. Nearby, Tawanna Johnson was feeding her 1-year-old son when she heard a “big boom” that shook her home on Rownita Street.
She called 911 after looking outside and seeing smoke rising from the plant and paper-size debris lofting into the air.
“It shook the whole house, windows. It felt like something dropped on the house,” Johnson said. “We haven’t had anything like this since Arkema. It was scary but further away.”
It is the first chemical fatality at a Houston-area plant since 2016, when a worker died in an incident at PeroxyChem in Pasadena. In 2014, four workers died at a DuPont plant in La Porte.
KMCO President John C. Foley apologized to the Crosby community during a news conference for the disruption and alarm the fire caused.
“It is with great sadness I stand before you today mourning the loss of a cherished member of our KMCO family,” Foley said. “Our hearts go out to them and our loved ones. … Our number one priority is safety and compliance.”
He declined to provide further information, including the identities of the employees killed or injured in the explosion.
KMCO, a subsidiary of an Austin private investment firm, produces coolant and brake fluid products for the automotive industry, as well as chemicals for the oil field industry. Its facility, which has a history of environmental and workplace safety issues, sits about 13 miles away from the ITC plant, where Harris County officials continued to detect carcinogenic benzene this week.
The KMCO plant is less than three miles from the Arkema facility where a series of explosions spewed chemicals and sickened residents after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
“It is disturbing and it is problematic that we are seeing this incident at a facility, especially on the heels of ITC,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said at a news conference.
As responders worked to contain the fire, the Environmental Protection Agency, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Harris County Pollution Control monitored air quality nearby for detectable chemicals. Shortly before 4 p.m. Tuesday, officials had yet to detect chemicals that required action, according to the EPA.
Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Gary Hendry said he felt like he had been struck by another vehicle when the explosion hit, rattling the windows of his patrol car.
“My neighbor called me and told me that their pictures were knocked off the wall,” said Hendry, who was the first to call in about the incident. “There were about five or six more explosions (after). I know the explosion was central, so it was inside of a cluster of tanks. I do know that the fire team was on scene pretty quickly.”
Mark Ragsdale said the explosion nearly knocked him out of bed. After spotting the plume, he went outside to investigate further. As a former firefighter, he recognized the smell as burning plastic and noticed there was no wind to carry the black smoke elsewhere.
