Emergency response teams responded to an accident across from the Albemarle Chemical Plant at approximately 10 p.m. last evening.
\nA tanker truck hauling ethyl benzene was preparing to drop off a load at the plant. He cut a corner too sharp and clipped an electric pole which contained high voltage wires, according to Hookies Fire Company Chief Bob Lynn.
\n\u201cThe truck was pulling into the lot across from the plant to sit for the night and off load during daylight hours,\u201d said Ivan Riggle, site complience manager of Albemarle. \u201cThe truck cut the corner too sharp and struck an electric pole that took out electricity to some of the homes in the area. The staff of Albamarle had a empty tanker truck at the plant and assisted in the off loading of the ethyl benzene.\u201d
\nEmergency response teams from Bald Eagle, Hookies, Citizens, Neptunes, Tipton-Antis and Warriors Mark and the Emergency Response Team from the Altoona Fire Department responded.
\n\u201cThe side of the truck was damaged,\u201d said Lynn. \u201cWe responded around 10 p.m. and left the scene around 5 a.m. Bellwood Fire Company was on standby.\u201d
\nRiggle was impressed with the quick and professonal response to the accident.
\n\u201cI was very pleased with the response of the HazMat and the volunteer fire companies,\u201d said Riggle. \u201cThey were very professional and made sure that this accident was minor and didn\u2019t get out of control.\u201d
\nAltoona Fire Chief Rene Santone said the right steps were taken in response to last night\u2019s accident.
\n\u201cThe Tyrone Fire Department with chief Jim Beckwith did an excellent job,\u201d said Santone. \u201cThey took a lot of precautionary moves that you need to take when you are dealing with a highly explosive and highly flammable liquid. There were 5,100 gallons of ethyl benzene. The outer tank was breeched and you couldn\u2019t see the inner tank. Everyone had breathing aparatus\u2019 on and we took every pre-caution necessary. You treat everything in the worst possible senario. we had great cooperation from the plant in transferring the load to another tanker. DEP was on scene and the Salvation Army was on hand to provide refreshments during the long night.\u201d
\nSantone said training helped everyone be prepared for the response last night.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve always had good cooperation with the plant and the Tyrone Fire Department when the HazMat team has to come down,\u201d said Santone. \u201cWe have spent many hours training with the people at Albemarle and the Tyrone Fire Department. Nobody wants an accident, but you prepare for any possible accident there is. The training helps keep situations like last night as minor and them from becoming large and dangerous situations.\u201d
\nPenelec was replacing the light poles at press time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emergency response teams responded to an accident across from the Albemarle Chemical Plant at approximately 10 p.m. last evening. A tanker truck hauling ethyl benzene was preparing to drop off a load at the plant. He cut a corner too sharp and clipped an electric pole which contained high voltage wires, according to Hookies Fire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}