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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