Several emergency crew members that got sick while responding to a toxic spill in Texas during Hurricane Harvey filed a $1 million lawsuit against the chemical company responsible for the spill.
Residents and first responders at the Arkema chemical plant explosion filed a lawsuit against the company after becoming violently ill from breathing in fumes from subsequent fires. They are claiming that the company did not properly warm them about the dangers from the chemicals.
“Although the explosions had occurred, no one from Arkema alerted the first responders who were manning the perimeter of the arbitrary mandatory evacuation area. Immediately upon being exposed to the fumes from the explosion, and one by one, the police officers and first responders began to fall ill in the middle of the road,” the lawsuit said.
One deputy had been taken to the hospital after he breathed in smoke spewing from the plant, local officials in Crosby, Texas said on Twitter shortly after the explosion. Nine other officers were sent to the hospital as a precaution. Company officials told the sheriff’s office that the smoke is likely only a “non-toxic irritant.”
“The scene was nothing less than chaos,” the lawsuit said. “Police officers were doubled over vomiting, unable to breathe. Medical personnel, in their attempts to provide assistance to the officers, became overwhelmed and they too began to vomit and gasp for air.”
Officials worked with the Department of Homeland Security and the State to set construct a triage center near the plant to help people overcome by smoke. High water levels from Harvey, which began as a Category 4 hurricane, compromised the area’s refrigeration system on backup product storage containers.
The lawsuit also claimed that the chemical plant’s inability to anticipate the need for refrigerators at the plant during the storm ultimately led the explosion. Harvey broke several long-standing rainfall records.
A rain gauge in the southeast section of Houston, for instance, reported 49 inches of rain three days after the storm made landfall. The total, which was recorded from Aug. 24 to Tuesday, is higher than the 48 inches set during tropical cyclone Amelia in 1978.
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