At approximately 1:22 p.m.
CT on March 27, 2000, an explosion and fire
responsible for one death and 71 injuries occurred at Phillips Petroleum's Houston Chemical
Complex at 1400 Jefferson Road, Pasadena, Texas
77506. The fire produced huge plumes of black smoke
that spread over the heavily-industrialized Houston Ship
Channel
and neighboring residential areas.
The explosion occurred at the K-Resin facility and involved a type
of
plastic made with
butadiene. At the time of the explosion, the tank
was out of service for cleaning and had no pressure or temperature
gauges that would have provided the workers with an alert to the
approaching crisis. Ultimately, this explosion resulted in one
fatality, while 32
Phillips
Petroleum employees and 39 subcontractors were taken to local
hospitals for sustaining burns, smoke inhalation, and cuts from
debris.
It took search crews five hours to locate the body of a missing
employee in the rubble. The dead man was Rodney Gott, a 45-year-old
supervisor, who barely survived the
Phillips Disaster of 1989. At that time
Gott was in a building whose roof collapsed but he remained in the
blazing plant to save a woman and attend to the injured.
The
Occupational
Safety and Health Administration's six-month investigation
concluded that failure to train workers properly was a key factor
in the explosion and fire, and it proposed that
Phillips Petroleum be fined $2.5 million
in penalties for 50 alleged violations of safety standards at the
facility.
Facility Today
Today, the facility continues to manufacture high-density
polyethylene (
HDPE), as well as
polypropylene and K-Resin SBC. This complex
employs 750 workers for the production of
specialty chemicals, including 150
operations and maintenance personnel.
The facility also experienced fatalities in
1989 and
1999. A massive
propane leak occurred on
25-Jun-2008 in a utility easement just outside
plant property.
See also
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