[Cincinatus' Wife]

[excerpt] The body of a contract worker missing after an explosion and fire at a Chambers County natural gas plant was recovered late Wednesday, officials said.

A search crew found the body of Richard Shaw at about 6:30 p.m., said Rick Rainey, a spokesman for Enterprise Products. An accident at noon Tuesday at the Mont Belvieu company produced a towering fireball that burned for hours before diminishing as the sun set.

....After the flames died down, Enterprise personnel entered the scene to begin determining the cause of the accident and to search for Shaw, Rainey said.

.....Chambers County emergency management coordinator Ryan Holzaepfel said he was told by officials at the plant when he arrived Tuesday the cause of the explosion likely was a failed pump in an above-ground pipe rack area.

In addition to trained Enterprise staff, workers from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Railroad Commission, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency responded to the incident, Rainey said.

......Though Mark Shaw had heard the facility was having problems early in the week, Rainey said the plant, to his knowledge, was having no mechanical issues. Richard Shaw and other maintenance contractors were on site as part of a scheduled “system improvement project,” not in response to a specific problem, Rainey said. [end excerpt]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7419912.html

[mstar]

How heartbreaking. Will be in prayer for the Shaw family.

Thank you Cincinatus' Wife for staying on top of this and keeping us updated. Bless you.

[philman_36]

The judge spoke truly...
"Those of us that have been here all our lives, we don't become used to them, but we have seen these type of things," Sylvia said. "We don't like them and wish they'd never happen again, but that's part of having industry in your back yard."
About two dozen of us came close to getting blown to smithereens in the early 90's. (flash fire at the first flange on a small vessel's hydrogen line that still had pressure behind the blind) One man's quick reaction saved us all that day. You have to come to grips with the understanding that you could die each and every day.

My condolences to the family and my sympathies to his coworkers. I would hate to be the man who had sent him out into the unit.