Free Republic

An explosion in a coke battery Wednesday morning rocked U.S. Steel's Clairton Works, sending 17 people to hospitals, a thick black cloud of smoke skyward and inspectors scrambling for clues to the cause. The explosion injured 14 U.S. Steel employees and six contractors. A dozen workers remained hospitalized last night with severe injuries. One suffered burns on nearly a third of his body, and several were hooked to breathing machines because flames and smoke had damaged their airways. Three workers received on-site treatment, the company said. "It was a big boom, and then everything just went black," said John Chappell,...

An explosion this morning at U.S. Steel's Clairton Works sent 15 people to area hospitals, at least five of them with critical injuries. "These are burn injuries for the most part," said Dan Laurent, spokesman for West Penn Hospital, which was treating three patients, one in critical condition. "We're hearing that the scene on the ground is pretty bad." A union official said no fatalities were reported. A company spokesperson did not immediately comment. The first reports of the explosion came in about 9:45 a.m. as ambulances from around the Mon Valley were dispatched to the sprawling plant. A fire...

U.S. Steel is suspending indefinitely the $1 billion modernization of its Clairton coke plant, a massive, multi-year project that was expected to create more than 600 construction jobs. The Pittsburgh steel producer said it was forced to make the "difficult but necessary decision" because of the economic slowdown that has prompted it to lay off about 7,000 union workers in recent months. "We cannot speculate as to when conditions will improve enough to allow work to resume," the company said in a prepared statement. When announced in November 2007, the project was hailed as the region's largest construction project since...