BAY AREA (KRON) -- Contra Costa Health Services has issued a shelter in place warning due to a hazardous material emergency at Phillips Rodeo Refinery.
There is an emergency at Phillips 66 (formerly Tosco) Refinery. Residents in Rodeo and Crockett are advised to continue to shelter-in-place. The people living outside of this area do not need to shelter-in-place, but should continue to listen to the radio in case the situation with this incident changes.
Residents should go inside, close all windows and doors, turn off all heaters, air conditioners and fans. If not using the fireplace, close fireplace dampers and vents and cover cracks around doors and windows with tape or damp towels. residents should also stay off the telephone unless there is a life-threatening emergency
Residents of Crockett and Rodeo are being asked to shelter in place this afternoon after a malfunction at the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo forced operators to shut down a sulfur facility. A Contra Costa County fire department spokeswoman said the county's community warning system sirens have been activated and anyone who can hear them should follow the instructions for the shelter-in-place procedure. A spokeswoman said a controlled burn inside the sulfur facility sent a highly visible plume of dark smoke that was drifting east along the Sacramento River from the refinery at midafternoon today. "They had to get rid of product and that's what is burning,'' she said. Lucia Libretti, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said the incident is causing "extensive flaring'' at the refinery, resulting in black smoke and possibly an odor. She said air district inspectors are responding to the scene. (from the sfgate.com site)
Still time to flee.
Some of the absolute worst refinery acidents have happed directly after power outages up here in Washington State.
Refineries accross the country are real touchy about the level of electric utility reliability they are given as it is a real safety issue.
Refineries are also terrorist identified potential targets. After Sept 11th all the ones up here in Washington STate had guards at the front gate and concrete Jersey barriers installed to prevent vehicles from running the gate at speed.
Based on what I know about the massive Stage 2 Power Emergency today and the requirement in Stage 2 to curtail certain industrial loads, I would suspect that this could be an industrial accident related to the loss of power. However, I am speculating at the moment.