Re: Terror in the NC piedmont

Originally Posted by
dgaddis
After spending 10yrs doing process piping design for chemical plants, and being of the age where I watched 9/11 live on TV in the 11th grade, I've often worried about an attack at a chemical plant. These plants have big quantities of bad bad really bad stuff (I've worked in plants that produce ammonium nitrate for example) and the only security is usually a senior citizen in a guard shack and a tall chain link fence around the plant. And these plants are dotted all over the country.
I worked for 5 years in a coke plant and ammonium sulfate was one of the by-products that we produced from baking coal, and other nasties included benzene, naphtha, tar, toluene and xylene. The coke oven gas collection tanks were massive and as coke oven gas is both toxic and highly flammable, it wouldn't take much to have one of these plants (many located on waterways) become a catastrophe. Our guards were ex-military and weren't shy about brandishing a firearm or a hickory stick when needed with a rowdy steelworker, often hiding from their ex-wife's attorney, who would show up at the plant gate to serve a child support subpoena between shift changes. That was always a good show in itself...thank goodness cell phones weren't around then.
rw saunders
hey, how lucky can one man get.
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