Update: Iberville Parish lifts shelter order for residents near Plaquemine after fire at Dow

Iberville Parish authorities lifted a shelter-in-place order early Saturday morning for about 350 households around the Dow Chemical complex north of Plaquemine after a large fire and explosions late Friday night.

The incident occurred in Dow’s Gylcol 2 Unit, which makes and handles the potent flammable and explosive chemical, ethylene oxide. It a human carcinogen with years of exposure, according to parish officials and state permit records.

Videos circulating on social media show large fires at the chemical plant along the Mississippi River and La. 1. Some show a large, fiery mushroom cloud bilowing from the Dow.

Parish and state officials said the incident involved explosions at the plant.

Crews battled the fire for hours, officials said. The status of the fire was unclear early Saturday.

La. 1 was shut and parish officials said early Saturday it remained closed north and south in front of Dow, parish officials said. River Road is open as are Enterprise Road to Sid Richardson Road. 

Clint Moore, Iberville homeland security director, said late Friday that Dow officials had been conducting air monitoring throughout the incident and have not detected releases that would pose on offsite impact. Dow’s monitors are inside the complex and on its perimeter.

The shelter in place order was in effect from shortly before 9:50 p.m. Friday through around 3:40 a.m. Saturday as a precaution.

On Saturday morning, parish officials said that Dow officials had told the parish homeland security office that it is safe to lift the shelter-in-place order. 

“Dow emergency services will continue to mitigate the fire,” the parish said in a Facebook post about 3:42 a.m.

Parish officials said air monitoring is continuing by the company, a third-party company contractor and the state Department of Environmental Quality. The contractor was bringing monitors for the community outside Dow’s fence line.

“All air monitoring has been non-detect,” the parish statement says.

Greg Langley, DEQ spokesman, said that the prevailing winds then were blowing back into the plant and toward the river.

Shortly before 9:50 p.m. Friday, the Iberville Office of Emergency Preparedness advised residents to stay indoors and turn off air conditioning and ceiling fans due to the emergency at Dow.

The shelter-in-place order had extended in a half-mile radius around the Dow plant, parish officials said in a Facebook post. Moore, the homeland security official, said the order is a precaution until officials are sure there isn’t a risk to the public.

Dow officials said all of their workers and contractors had been accounted for. It’s not clear if any were injured.

The fire comes about a year after a large leak of dangerous chlorine at Dow’s neighbor, Olin Chemical, which is inside the 1,500-acre complex north of Plaquemine.

DEQ and parish officials said later that the extent of the leak, which sent of huge plume of gas into the sky in April 2022, appeared to be underreported by Olin and Dow.   

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That leak sent 39 people to area hospitals with mostly mild symptoms, and DEQ inspectors later raised questions about the efficacy of the placement of Dow air monitors in the community near the plant and on its perimeter in relation to prevailing winds at the time and the gas plume. 

The fire on Friday isn’t the first time the Glycol 2 Unit at Dow has encountered significant problems. In November 2019, a tank in the unit ruptured on a Sunday morning after a large power outage, sending a white steam cloud into the air and causing a large shock wave that rensonated in homes as far away as Zachary across the river.

The Dow site straddles Iberville and West Baton Rouge parishes. Located along a bend in the Mississippi River, Dow is one of Louisiana’s largest petrochemical facilities, with more than 3,000 company and contract employees and 12 production units.