Saturday, 13 February 2016

Capital T

Thirty-five years ago today - Friday the thirteenth – shortly after 5:00 a.m., residents of Louisville, Kentucky woke to the sounds of horrific explosions. City streets buckled inward, cars and manhole covers flew into the air, walls collapsed and toilets turned into raw sewage fountains. In the weeks that followed they learned Ralston-Purina had been using hexane gas to extract oil from soybeans. The containment system that was meant to recycle the gas back into the plant malfunctioned, dumping massive amounts of hexane into the city’s sewers. A spark from a car’s catalytic converter set off the explosion, and left much of Old Louisville believing the world was coming to an end. Two miles of sewer were completely destroyed. Water lines were severed in the blast, leaving residents without running water for weeks. It was a ghastly mess, but there were no fatalities. Not such an unlucky day after all.

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