A fitting time to reanimate this one, originally posted on October 6, 2006:
Would you be shocked if you found yourself dragged out of your home and sent to an evacuation center in the dead of night? After 9/11, probably not. Still . . .
Very early this morning in Apex, North Carolina (not far from Raleigh, the state capital), some 17,000 residents were evacuated in the wake of explosions and toxic fires at the humorously named Environmental Quality Company, whose headquarters are based in Wayne, Michigan. The fiery cloud release includes chlorine gas, the type used in trench warfare during World War One, and other agents that cause respiratory distress and, potentially, death.
This horror show immediately reminded me of one of the most perceptive novels of the past fifty or so years that I have read – Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985), especially its Airborne Toxic Event. DeLillo finished this brilliant satirical work after the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, which by now has caused the deaths of perhaps 15,000 people (12/3/1984). The following year came the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (4/26/1986).
This is the third major plant fire fiasco in North Carolina in the past fifteen years that I can recall. In Hamlet, John Coltrane’s little hometown, a grease fire (it was a large vat, apparently) at the chicken-nugget plant owned by Imperial Foods led to the immediate death of 25 workers – the emergency exits had thoughtfully been chained shut by management to “prevent theft of chickens” (9/3/1991). At West Pharmaceutical Plant in Kinston, an explosion killed at least four outright and injured another 37 (1/29/2003).
One thing we can count on: there will be plenty more Airborne Toxic Events to come, and not just potentially above Iran and North Korea.
As for White Noise, there are rumblings this year that Barry Sonnenfield is going to produce a movie version. It’ll be just like real life, only more so. [Hasn't happened. Instead we've gotten additional doses of real life. Just like fiction -- only more so].
Today's Rune: Wholeness.
Do svidaniya!
5 comments:
I remember hearing about the fire at the chicken plant, and how infuriated I was when I learned the reason for the deaths.
The 100th anniversary of the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is approaching-- March 25th. Amazing that we have to keep learning the same lessons over and over again.
I used to have to move around those 2000 pound containers of chlorine. Yeah bad shit that it is because it displaces oxygen wherever it disperses. But then you drink it every day because they use it to make non potable water potable.
We live in a society, no matter where from front to finish that is laced with chemistry for a better life, if it kills a few dozen or a few thousand at least the rest will have their fried chicken that wasn't stolen by them thieving workers.
Erik, with my sometimes asthma, I would probably be amoung the first to drop. Horrible stuff.
Long ago it used to be that folks had to be within touching range to kill you. Now they don't have to be anywhere close and you may not even see the cloud until it's around you.
Can you believe these idiots?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/every-single-goper-on-house-energy-cmte-wont-say-climate-change-is-real.php?ref=fpb#
-JC
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