This morning there was a huge explosion at the Alon Refinery in Big Spring, TX. I have been by this refinery many times. It’s about 70 miles from my house. As luck would have it, this was a Federal holiday, and only 3 workers were at the plant, otherwise it would have been busy with about 170 workers. These three were injured as was someone driving by on I-20 that was hit by debris. I-20 has been closed all day there. No one has been known to have been killed by the blast at this time.
Classes from Big Spring ISD where closed for the day as well as Howard College. The fire is under control right now and there is no threat to the City of Big Spring. People as far away as San Angelo, Tx reported hearing the blast.
That refinery produces 70,000 barrels a day. Incidentally, the fire mostly affected the area that manufactures propane and propylene. The area the produces gasoline was not affected but was shut down for safety. An interesting note is that reports across the area indicate gasoline prices shot up as much as 20 cents a gallon immediately after the news came out about the explosion.
Another lucky draw in this was that the winds were mostly calm. A stark contrast to the weather of late when we have been experiencing many days of high winds over 45 mph and massive grass fires. It’s shuttering to think what this would have been like had this been one of those days. The relatively calm winds produced some wonderful pyrocumulus clouds as well.
You can see all sorts of video and more images and get the latest on this at a sister TV station for the one I chase for, KWES Newswest 9.
What an incredible scene!! As you said, it’s fortunate that nobody was killed. I’m always interested in what causes these types of disasters. All of the ones in the past that I recall were somebody being stupid with a welding torch.