Houston Chronicle by Perla Trevizo Oct. 30, 2019
Report:
ITC did not have emergency shutoff valve or alarm before massive blazeThousands of gallons of a highly flammable hazardous chemical spilled for nearly 30 minutes before catching fire at the Intercontinental Terminals Co. tank farm in Deer Park, but the facility did not have a remote emergency shutoff valve nor an alarm to alert workers, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
Released Wednesday, the federal agency’s preliminary report is the first to provide a glimpse of what happened inside the chemical storage facility since a March 17 blaze sent a plume of black smoke into the skies that could be seen from 30 miles away, forced a three-day shutdown of the Houston Ship Channel and created 20 million gallons of waste.
While the exact cause of the ITC fire remains unknown, Chemical Safety Board investigators say there likely was a mechanical problem in a pump circulation system that transferred butane to a tank containing naphtha, a flammable liquid typically used as a feedstock for the production of gasoline.
The CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents.
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