Last night, about 12:30 am, I awoke with a start. I heard, and felt, a big exlosion. Something that rocked the whole house.
"Oh my gosh! What was that?"
It took me a minute to get my witts, (Hush, Kate! Not a word from you!), then I ran to our bedroom window to see if the world was still out there. What I saw shocked me. It's one's worst fear when living in Anacortes. I saw a large cloud of black smoke coming from the oil refinery that is just across Padilla Bay, about 5 miles from us.
There are two oil refineries at Anacortes. They are the largest employers in the Skagit County area. At night, they are very well lit, seriously lit - like Disneyland. There are always large soft plumes of white steam coming from the tall stacks. It's hard to believe, but the refineries are actually beautiful at night.
"Sid, I think there was an exposion at the refinery! There's not usually black smoke coming from the refinery,... is there???" As if in answer to my question, alarms and sirens from the refinery quickly filled the air.
We can see the refineries pretty well from our bedroom window. Our house is on a hill, so we can see, (although somewhat blocked by trees), out over the bay. But because of the amount of lights at the refineries, I saw no flames, just pitch black smoke rolling against the golden glow.
Then, amazingly,... after only about an hour or so, the sirens and the smoke both subsided. I returned to bed,... somewhat comforted by the the fact that, clearly, the emergency proceedures they have in place over there are swift, immediate and effective.
Well, sadly, there was indeed an explosion at the Tosoro refinery last night. Three workers were killed. Four were life flighted with serious injuries. They don't know the exact cause yet, except that routine maintence was being done on the naptha.
From the Associate Press: "The blast occurred in the naphtha unit of the refinery. Naphtha is a volatile, flammable liquid derived during the refining process, and the unit had undergone maintenance and was in the process of returning to operation — a "typically dangerous" step of turning up heat and pressure."
Again, I was impressed with how quickly the situation was brought under control. I have a feeling things could have been MUCH worse if not for the quick actions and emergency proceedures that are obviously in place there.
The little town of Anacortes will be buzzing, yet sad and sombre, for quite a while I'm sure.
