TEXAS CITY, Texas (AP) -- Reports of an explosion and houses filled with smoke poured into Texas City 911 operators within minutes of the fiery blast at a BP plant that killed 15 and injured more than 100 last week.
Amid the hundreds of calls _ at least 90 in the first two minutes _ police and fire officials blocked off roads around the plant and notified emergency rooms that injured would soon arrive.
''A plant just blew up. Oh my God!'' said one caller, minutes after Wednesday's blast. ''I was sitting at a red light and I felt it in my body.''
A BP official matter-of-factly relayed the same information on tapes that the Texas City Police Department released Tuesday: ''We just had an explosion. It is an explosion on the refinery side. It is at the isom unit.''
The blast occurred in the plant's isomerization unit as part it was brought up to full production after a two-week shutdown for routine maintenance. The explosion shot flames, ash and blackened metal into the sky and blew out windows a half mile away.
''Whatever that was that happened, that explosion ... it threw me off my couch,'' Joyce Mason, 52, told a 911 operator. The operator told her of the explosion and that emergency workers were on the way to the plant.
''Listen, I'm hurt. It threw me on this concrete floor,'' Mason said, complaining of her knees, arm and leg being injured.
An ambulance was also dispatched to a grocery store near the plant where a woman in her 80s was reportedly hit in the face by a part of the ceiling.
''I want to put you on notification we have had a bad explosion in one of the plants,'' Texas City Police Sgt. Curtiss R. Pope told an emergency room worker at a hospital. ''They have got numerous injuries.''
''We are ready and we are going to get our hazmat team in progress,'' the hospital worker responded.
Officers also called requesting all the medical helicopters possible and stokes, or basket-like stretchers used to lift injured people.
The BP official, whose full name wasn't available, later called 911 asking for ambulances. Another official informed Texas City authorities that naphtha and hydrogen were burning at the plant and that wind was blowing in a direction that likely wouldn't require evacuations.
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston spokeswoman Cathy Nall said Tuesday that one patient remained in critical condition and another was in good condition. She said other victims' families had requested the hospital release no information on their conditions.
The explosion was the third accident at the plant in a year. An explosion during maintenance in March 2004 forced an evacuation, but no one was injured. Two workers died in September after they were burned with superheated water.
A moment of silence is planned at BP plants worldwide at 1:20 p.m. Wednesday, exactly one week after the explosion and fire.
BP spokesman Bill Stephens has said the refinery is back to normal operations except for the unit affected by the blast. He said employees and contractors returning to work Monday.
Preliminary evidence suggests a flammable liquid and vapor were released and then ignited, investigators with the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board have said.
Lead investigator Angela Blair said her team had hoped Tuesday to examine the unit where the explosion occurred as well as a raffinate splitter, which separates lighter hydrocarbon material from heavier hydrocarbons that are then fed into the isom reactor. The isomerization unit then converts the chemicals pentane and hexane, both highly flammable, into isopentane and isohexane, boosting the octane rating of gasoline.
Investigators, however, couldn't enter the isomerization unit Tuesday because of damage to the dome of a benzene storage tank at an adjoining refinery tank farm. Benzene vapors were detected in the area of the unit, causing a health concern.
CSB investigators said BP planned to erect scaffolding and apply foam to the benezene tank on Wednesday. Investigators said they could enter the isomerization unit Thursday at the earliest.
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