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1 dead, 77 hurt in La. plant explosion

Friday - 6/14/2013, 3:56am  ET

A chemical plant is hosed down after a fire in this aerial photo about twenty miles southeast of Baton Rouge, in Geismer, La., Thursday, June 13, 2013. The plant makes highly flammable gases that are basic building blocks in the petrochemical industry. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Associated Press


"There was fire in excess of 100 to 200 feet in the air," said state Sen. Troy Brown, who felt the blast at his house, less than five miles away. "It was scary to see."







A contract worker, Daniel Cuthbertson, 34, described a scene of "mass hysteria" immediately after the explosion, with workers scrambling over gates to get out of the plant.

"God was with me today because I know when I looked back, I barely made it. I know somebody was hurt. There's no way everybody escaped that," Cuthbertson said while at an emergency staging area about 2 miles from the plant.

At nearby Dutchtown High School, football players were doing conditioning exercises outdoors when they heard the boom. Students were rushed inside and the school went into emergency lock-down.

"My biggest concern is that I'm hoping none of our players or students had parents who worked in that plant and were injured. That's my main thing," Benny Saia, the school's athletic director and head football coach, said in an interview later.


Residents several miles from the plant described feeling the ground shaking.

"It felt like a three-second earthquake. It was a massive explosion," said Brown. Unsure what it was, he drove to a gas station down the street from his house and saw flames shooting up 100 to 200 feet into the air.

Officials at area hospitals said a handful of patients were in critical or serious condition, though most seemed to have minor injuries. The plant makes ethylene and propylene -- highly flammable gases that are the basic building blocks in the petrochemical industry.


Cain said the fire was out, but gas was being flared -- burned at the top of high chimneys -- in other parts of the plant. "There is still some controlled flaring going on, so people in the area are going to see smoke," he said.


