Explosions, fire at Dow Chemical in Iberville Parish Friday evening
IBERVILLE PARISH, La. (WAFB) - A series of explosions at the Dow Chemical facility in Iberville Parish shook homes several miles away Friday evening, July 14.
Plant officials said all employees were accounted for and no injuries were reported. Plant officials said late Friday evening they were still working to access the cause of the incident which began around 9:15pm.
A series of explosions at the Dow Chemical facility in Iberville Parish shook homes several miles away Friday evening, July 14.
Video from the near scene showed flames shooting from the facility and a large amount of smoke rising into the air.
Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi said air monitoring outside of the facility did not detect any dangerous chemicals.
A series of explosions at the Dow Chemical facility in Iberville Parish shook homes several miles away Friday evening, July 14.
Iberville Parish Emergency Preparedness Officials urged residents within a one-half mile radius of the plant to “shelter in place”. The order means residents should remain indoors with air conditioning units turned off. As of 12:10 a.m. Saturday morning, that order was still in place. Officials said that order was put in place out of “an abundance of caution.”
“The Dow Fire Unit is cooling down the tanks in the area where the fire occurred, and they’re still telling us that no one was injured,” Stassi said about thirty minutes after the incident.
Kenneth Haydel was near the plant with family members and said he heard several explosions within a few seconds of one another. “We looked up in the sky and the whole sky was lit up orange,” Haydel said.
Residents as far away as along Burbank Drive in Baton Rouge reported that the explosions shook their homes.
This is a developing story.
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Source: WAFB
