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This image from video provided by WDIO-TV in Duluth shows smoke rising from the Husky Energy oil refinery after an explosion on Thursday morning in Superior. Authorities say several people were injured in the explosion. (WDIO-TV via AP)
By AMY FORLITI and JEFF BAENEN
Associated Press
An evacuation order was lifted early on Friday in northwest Wisconsin where a refinery-plant explosion injured at least 11 people and sent billowing plumes of black smoke into the air.
Superior Mayor Jim Paine said all signs suggest that the refinery site is now safe and stable, and that the air quality is normal. He said he lifted the evacuation order just before 6 a.m.
Authorities said the fire at the Husky Energy oil refinery was extinguished late Thursday but that the evacuation order remained in effect overnight for Superior, a city of about 27,000 residents.
A tank of crude oil or asphalt exploded about 10 a.m. Thursday at the refinery, prompting authorities to order the evacuation of a 3-mile radius around the refinery, as well as a 10-mile corridor south of it where the smoke was heading.
It was unclear how many people left, but Paine said most of the city was affected. The refinery is in an industrial area, but there’s a residential neighborhood within a mile to the northeast. The corridor downwind to the south of the refinery is sparsely populated.
Schools in Superior and nearby, in Maple, Wisconsin, canceled classes on Friday as a precaution.
Hospital officials said only one of the injured was seriously hurt, suffering what was described as a blast injury. No deaths were reported, and officials said all of the workers had been accounted for.
Thick, black smoke that could be seen for miles poured from the refinery hours after the explosion. Kollin Schade, refinery manager, said the smoke was from burning asphalt that was so hot that firefighters were unable to attack the fire to try to put it out. Emergency officials later said another tank had caught fire, too, though they didn’t specify what was in it.
A four-person team from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board will investigate the blast. The board makes safety recommendations after serious chemical incidents.
The fire was initially put out about 11:20 a.m. Thursday, but it reignited, prompting police to urge residents living within an evacuation area to leave. Police blocked roads into the area around the refinery. Three schools and St. Mary’s Hospital in Superior were evacuated as a precaution.
A contractor who was inside the building told WDIO television that the explosion sounded like “a sonic boom” and that it happened when crews were working on shutting the plant down for repairs.
Kara Tudor, 30, and Julia Johnson, 27, live a couple miles from the refinery and were ordered to leave. They quickly scooped up their two dogs and three cats, grabbed their toothbrushes and drove to a friend’s house in Duluth, where they were watching the news for updates.
Johnson, who was working from home at the time of the blast, said the windows shook.
“It felt like something had hit the house, like a vehicle or a branch from a tree,” Johnson said. “Our dogs started barking. It was a stressful moment.”
Tudor, a scientist at a research company, said residents were not told much about the potential danger, what was in the smoke or why it was so black. But she said it was clear people should not have been breathing it in, and she wondered how it would affect the water and air quality.
Oil smoke can contain a mix of noxious hydrocarbons and other chemicals with potential short- and long-term health effects .
National Weather Service radar showed the smoke plume extending south-southeast, taking it into sparsely populated areas. The weather service said winds were expected to weaken Thursday evening and eventually shift toward Lake Superior. It said the smoke probably would not affect Duluth, a city of about 87,000.
Calgary, Alberta-based Husky Energy bought the refinery from Indianapolis-based Calumet Specialty Products Partners last year for more than $490 million. It is Wisconsin’s only refinery, and it produces gasoline, asphalt and other products.
The refinery was fined by federal officials under its previous owners in 2015. U.S. Department of Labor spokesman Scott Allen said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Calumet Superior LLC $21,000 over emergency-response and flammable-liquids violations. The violations were settled and the deficiencies dealt with by the end of that year.
Allen said it was the only OSHA enforcement action taken against Calumet Superior LLC in the past 20 years. Calumet Superior operates as a subsidiary of Calumet Specialty Products Partners, which sold the plant to Husky Energy last year.
The refinery, which dates to the early 1950s, has a processing capacity of around 50,000 barrels a day and the capacity to store 3.6 million barrels of crude and products. It processes both heavy crude from the Canadian tar sands in Alberta and lighter North Dakota Bakken crude.
