Kablooey Blam

In reference to my last post and Claudia's query:

Grosvenor Chemicals blew up last Sunday/Monday night.  About 1:05am, Adam and I were just crawling into bed, and through the open skylight (we would have heard this anyway) we heard I think three massive booms.  If you've ever been really close to a fireworks mortar when it's set off, that's what it sounded like.  About 5 minutes what sounded liked a car or house alarm started going off, but turned out to be the warning for the neighbors that a bunch of chemicals have been released into the air.  And didn't stop.  Period.  So I shut the skylight.  Which turned out to be a wise plan, even if our place was already nearly as warm as a greenhouse (since we have one giant window and we're on the top floor, this is more apt that you might realize).  I don't sleep well with noise (or heat, but noise trumps heat), and the air around here was foul smelling and tasting the next day, so I'm glad we didn't let it all in.

The company makes pesticides and glue-based products.  It took about 150 firefighters (at the peak) and at least two shifts to get it under control, and the river was absolutely filled with the foam they used.

I've heard rumors that it may have been arson, as the REALLY flammable and toxic stuff was moved away from where the fire started, but I have no actual further information on that part of it.

The local paper article and some pics can be found here.

Oh, and as a sidenote: Grosvenor Chemicals is no more than a ten minute walk from our place, and just on the other side of the playing fields (aka a couple of cricket/football fields) from Adam's work.  So like 1-2 minutes past Adam's work.  Plus, this is I believe the third time they've burned in the last 20 years, and they've broken any number of environmental and health/safety laws.