I’m pretty close to the plant. I’m new to the area and I don’t really know anyone. I didn’t get any emergency alerts and they didn’t use the sirens. Is this normal? I found out by accident on the Nextdoor app this morning. I didn’t hear any official statements until 9:30PM! It’s been going since 5AM!
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
190 points (99.5% liked)
News
23314 readers
3331 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Are you signed up for alerts? https://www.atlantaga.gov/government/mayor-s-office/executive-offices/office-of-emergency-preparedness/be-ready
The fire ignited when a sprinkler head malfunctioned around 5 a.m. Sunday at the BioLab plant in Conyers, Rockdale County Fire Chief Marian McDaniel told reporters. The malfunction caused water to mix with a water-reactive chemical, producing a plume of chemicals.
It seems like a pretty fucking big oversight to put a water based fire suppression system in a building that stores water-reactive chemicals.
Industry regulating itself.
Hmm. I wonder if the fire code has an exception for that or just requires it.
The fire ignited when a sprinkler head malfunctioned
Some dipstick hit it with the forklift, I guarantee it.
I'm just some random person on the internet, but shouldn't their fire system be non-water based if they're working with water reactive chemicals. This plus the sprinkler failing makes me think this was totally preventable and likely due to negligence, probably to save money if I had to guess.
This is America. We don't regulate these things. Especially not in red states.
I've done some (grunt-level) work in chemical packaging. I didn't see in the article if it specifies, but the place I worked handled tons of different types of chemicals and they'd all have their own precautions needed. If this place was the same (big if), the sprinklers are probably standard for fire, and the chemical in question should be delivered sealed in watertight drums and only opened/handled inside a small room-sized fume hood. We had specialized rooms for things like spontaneously combustible chemicals and poisonous inhalation hazards — those chemicals were never unsealed outside those rooms.
All that goes out the window I assume if this is the only chemical they handle.
The coverage of this in the news is not nearly big enough. I didnt found out till this morning and it's none of the headlines on Google News
Looking forward to the USCSB video on this one.
Right? Immediately made me think of the Arkema chemical plant in Texas episode
TIL that the US Chemical Safety Board has a utube channel with chem accident/disaster episodes.
It punches way above its weight, too. 340k subscribers for a channel that posts 2-3 times a year with workplace safety videos. They do a good job explaining technical issues to the layman, though, and put effort into their animations.