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DAYTON, Ohio -- Interstate
75 in downtown Dayton turned into a parking lot for nearly two hours
while crews dealt with a large diesel fuel spill that lasted into
Thursday morning.
Police
received calls about 11:15 Wednesday night concerning problems on
southbound 75 right near Main Street.
Officers discovered a big rig with a ruptured side
fuel tank on his cab. Dozens of gallons of diesel fuel were rolling
across the highway.
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About 250 gallons of sulfuric acid leaked onto
Interstate 25 and into its drainage systems Thursday
night.
Crews are finishing the cleanup today and trying to
determine the damage and environmental impact.
The leak,
in the northbound lanes between South Washington Street and South
Broadway, closed I-25 at South University Boulevard for several hours,
and the northbound lanes remained closed late Thursday.
Phil
Champagne, a spokesman for the Denver Fire Department, said a semi
hauling about 38,000 pounds of sulfuric acid was leaking the corrosive
chemical as it drove along the interstate, and other motorists reported
the leak.
Champagne called it a "considerable
spill."
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Explosions could be heard for miles.
Residents
were turned away from their homes.
Madera County Sheriff's
Deputies say it's all because of what was found inside an Oakhurst home
in the area of Highway 41 and Highway 49.
"The only
thing that I can tell you that they have been able to confirm is yes,
this is a hazmat situation, it is not a bomb scare," Erica Stuart,
Madera County Sheriff's Department, said.
Deputies
were first called to the home Wednesday, after receiving reports of pipe
bomb inside.
The pipe bomb turned out to be something
else.
But what they did find warranted a call to several
different agencies.
"You've got fire, you've got the bomb squad, you have
hazmat, environmental health, you have the sheriff's department," Stuart
said.
Deputies are being tight lipped about what exactly was
found inside the home.
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TROY =97 Officials have
determined there was no danger to a neighborhood after 13 Mason jars
filled with mercury were discovered at a home in the 2200 block of East
Square Lake, east of John R, in Troy.
A couple
recently purchased the house and discovered a Mason jar of mercury
inside the home filled with 10 pounds of mercury. They reportedly buried
the jar in the backyard, but did not open the jar or break the glass,
said Troy Police Lt. Bob Redmond.
The couple called police
Nov. 29 when they discovered 12 more jars of mercury buried in the crawl
space under the home when they tore up floorboards during a renovation
project, Redmond said. Those jars were not opened, and the glass was
intact, according to police.
Troy police and fire officers from the hazmat team
responded and tested the air in the home and determined that it exceeded
safe levels and was unsafe for human occupancy. Readings taken outside
the home registered =93zero=94 level of mercury, police
said.
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ESCONDIDO
=97 Experts in everything from air pollution to fire barriers honed a
complex plan Wednesday to burn the =93bomb factory=94 home on the north
edge of Escondido. While they don=92t have a turnkey strategy to deal
with a situation of this rarity, explosives experts said the developing
blueprint seems solid.
=93The plan is tight,=94 said Neal Langerman, a San
Diego-based chemistry expert.
The three-bedroom home on Via Scott is so cluttered
with dangerous chemicals =97 all of which terrorists have used to make
explosives =97 that incinerating the home is the only way to safely
remove everything, authorities said.
County leaders said they
don=92t know how much the operation will cost.
The
prescribed fire is expected early next week, but county air officials
said it won=92t start until the winds are blowing about 3 mph toward
lesser-populated areas to the east and there=92s no inversion layer that
could trap smoke. That=92s usually the case in the late
morning.
=93It=92s all science-based and theoretical right now,
and I think the challenge is to make sure the proper public safety
precautions are being taken,=94 said Don Plain, head of emergency
response for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. =93It=92s
an unknown situation, to a certain extent. This is a variable that has
people, I think, a little nervous, but I don=92t really think
(officials) have another option.=94
The house was rented by
George Djura Jakubec, 54, who is being held on $5 million bail on 28
counts, mostly for manufacturing or possessing explosives. He has
pleaded not guilty.
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LOWER EAST SIDE =97 A high school student and a school
nurse were taken to the hospital Thursday after a chemical spill in a
school chemistry lab at Lower East Side high school, fire and school
officials said.
A 16-year-old Marta Valle High School student got a
substance called Benedict's Reagent on her arm, school officials
said.
The chemical is used in experiments with sugars. It
can cause an irritation of the skin, school officials
said.
The tenth grader and the school nurse were taken to
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center as a precaution, the
FDNY said.
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A Panama
City business is destroyed in an overnight fire. Firemen are still at
the scene of the blaze at Affordable Transmissions on North East
Ave.
.
The fire started around midnight and took close to
four hours to bring under control. Fire fighters from several
departments responded to the alarm and were hampered by the freezing
weather and chemical gases inside the business.
The shop
was listed as a total loss, includuing equipment and customers vehicles
locked inside.
Several fire fighters were treated from smoke
inhalation and minor injuries. The State Fire Marshal investigators are
currently at the scene sifting the the rubble trying to determine what
was the cause of the blaze.
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BETHLEHEM
-- A Bethlehem man whose brother was badly burned in a chemical-fueled
fire last year was arraigned on felony and misdemeanor charges after
police said they linked him to a stockpile of volatile -- and
potentially deadly -- chemicals found Tuesday in his
apartment building.
Bethlehem police said the collection of chemicals they
found in Jason D. Sanchez's storage area in the basement of his Cherry
Arms apartment building posed "a grave risk of death" to other residents
in the Delaware Avenue complex.
"He had apparently been
setting up some type of laboratory in there," Deputy Police Chief
Timothy Beebe said. While investigators have not determined what
Sanchez, 24, intended to build, Beebe said "the potential for danger was
high" and that the setup did not appear to be a makeshift laboratory for
manufacturing crystal meth.
Sanchez is a graduate
student at Rensselaer Polytechic Institute and a teachers assistant at
Albany's William S. Hackett Middle School.
Confiscated from the basement were acetone, Xylene, sulfuric
acid, a propane torch, butane fuel and laboratory-grade nitric acid,
Beebe said at a news conference Wednesday.
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A hazmat situation at the
Cherry Arms Apartment complex in Delmar created quite a scene on
Tuesday, and now police have made an arrest.
Twenty-four-year-old Jason Sanchez is facing a number of
charges after police say they found dangerous chemicals in the
basement.
While there are some answers, police still have a lot
of questions in the investigation.
David Cohen of Delmar says,
"It's idiotic."
Many who live in the Town of Bethlehem are shocked
that Sanchez allegedly had dangerous chemicals in the basement of
his apartment building.
Cohen
says, "there should be some way of checking where they came
from."
Police say what they found in the basement called for
multiple agencies to respond. Police say they seized acetone, xylene,
laboratory grade nitric acid, sulfuric acid, a propane torch and butane,
along with a homemade commercial grade vacuum chamber.
-----------------------
ESCONDIDO, Calif. -- Mass
evacuations, the closing of a major freeway and containment of flames
are just a few of the logistics being worked out in advance of the
burning of a North County house that's been called a homemade bomb
factory.
Officials have been holding
meetings behind closed doors as they try to organize the huge operation
planned for next week. On Thursday, crews will begin cutting back trees
and brush around the house on Via Scott.
The burn was planned after bomb technicians and Hazmat
crews discovered homemade explosives and hazardous chemicals strewn
throughout the house rented by 54-year-old George Jakubec, who according
to a search warrant released Wednesday confessed to robbing three banks
and trying to rob one of them twice.
Pictures
taken inside the house showed clutter on every surface. Mixed in with
that clutter, were grenade casings, a jar of explosives, blasting caps,
and chemicals. A huge wall will be built around the entire house before
firefighters light the house in fire.
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RIEGELWOOD, NC (WECT) - A fire in part of the Momentive
plant, formerly known as Hexion Specialty Chemicals, in Riegelwood is
under control Wednesday afternoon.
The fire broke out before
noon in what is called a dryer in the chemical plant, according to the
facility's site leader. A dryer in that plant is not what is
commonly known as a dryer in a household. There was no damage to
the building.
According to Columbus County Emergency Services
Director Jeremy Jernigan, there were no injuries. At this point,
officials are not sure of the cause.
Workers at the plant plan to
spend the afternoon checking other pieces of equipment on the
property.
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