Chocolate Factory Explosion

The working hypothesis is gas leak, but I'm curious if it was a dust explosion like Georgia 2008. The latter are entirely preventable with sanitation. Gas explosions with occupancy are rare in the US due to odorants detectable down to 0.1 ppb. It would've required a large sealed room to do that much damage and go unnoticed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Georgia_sugar_refinery_ex...

I thought there was some mention of gas from the first responders. When a lot ignites at one time it can be earth-shaking.

Maybe something like the Phillips explosion in 1989:

https://pophistorydig.com/topics/phillips-petroleum-explosio...

I'll never forget what it was like. We had about a 50x200 foot metal building with offices in front and warehouse in back, and an alley in between the next building so trucks could make deliveries and get to the dumpster in back. The "Garbagemaniac" was a known agressive driver, expressing his displeasure ever since the dumpster was no longer at the front of the building.

Anyway I built the chemical laboratory in a completely enclosed sub-space of the warehouse, well above code, with separate ventilation but you could walk right in from the established office hallway through a big metal fire door and be right there. Another metal door led out from the lab to the remaining warehouse space, these heavy doors really make a noise when they close, and shook the sub-wall they were attached to a little bit every time. By the sound, you could tell which door someone came in from because the warehouse wall rattled characteristically with all the gas tubing and utilities attached to it. You get used to it, there's a lot of noisy equipment and early small-computer fans were not small or low-noise themselves.

I really was already dedicated to getting more accomplished in small money-making laboratories than I could working as an employee in the chemical plants and refineries themselves, or their usually-remote research centers, which can have unlimited budgets by comparison and do not need to turn a profit on their own. I still especially enjoy being at least a couple miles from the nearest plant, rather than right inside a massive facility full-time.

If you look at the blast radius from Phillips I was in Zone 2 a couple miles away.

Well back in 1989 this time, everyone else was still out for lunch and I was sitting in the men's room in the offices in the mid-part of the building. I was jolted and it felt and sounded like the garbage truck had crashed right in from the alley through the closed overhead warehouse door, and into the side wall of the lab where the pipes rattled like you had never heard before, and I was not even in the lab.

I quickly got up, went out there and saw nothing. I could not believe there was no visible damage, nothing. It had been a massive shock and I felt the whole building move, people were not going to believe me when they get back.

When they got back they were telling me about it from the news, the fire was ongoing and the Ship Channel had restricted traffic.

Over the next few weeks we figured out that part of the building had moved about 1 inch and the other part about a half-inch, the slab had cracked in the middle but fortunately it did not hamper our continued operation.

It was very tragic for the local community of industrial workers though.