Chlorine Gas Cloud loose in Raleigh, NC.

I've seen first hand what this stuff can do. When I was a young lad I was a lifeguard. One of the pools I worked at used chlorine gas to chlorinate the pool (that's pretty rare, usually they give a liquid or a solid that looks like salt or is formed into something like charcoal briquettes).

One day we were switching the empty tank for a full one. Through a series of mishaps, we cracked the valve housing and the gas started fill the pumphouse. We fled and evacuated the pool area. The evil cloud slithered out the slatted windows and floated over the fence and toward the creek behind the pool. We called the fire department and they came out and decided that it was safe as the amount of gas released was pretty small and the wind had dissipated the gas enough that there was no immediate hazard. We reluctantly went back to the pump house area and looked over the fence. All the waist high weeds were dead and greyish green looking. It looked like Death himself had spread his hand among the weeds.

That was a very small tank that only partially leaked. Imagine what a 150 ft high cloud of this stuff can do. Nasty business.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For Gerard

 Many moons ago, I started reading blogs and shortly thereafter I started reading them.  I became discouraged because I read many writers, far more talented than me and the ease with which they elucidated the very points I wanted to make but so much more elegantly and completely that I just gave up.    Gerard of American Digest was one such writer.  His facility with prose and his ability to evoke emotion was remarkable.  I linked to him once with my nascent blog and he was kind enough to reach out to me and thank me for the link.  I literally had zero readers.  Just like now.  But that was the measure of the man.  He took the time to reach out to me and genuinely thank me for the link.   The closest I ever had to meeting the man was meeting Morgan in person.  Morgan and Gerard were friends.  They had an evident mutual respect for their respective works.   I never met Gerard, didn't know the man personally but having read his work I had a sense of the man.  He's dying now.  If
Read more

So....the autism thing

Since April is nearly over and it's autism awareness month, I suppose I should talk a bit about it. I guess the best way to start is to rehash the story of How I Got Here. My oldest was born in 1999. Healthy, happy and so on. One peculiar thing he did as an infant was to avoid eye contact. Our doctor assured us it was because he was so young and his eyesight was undeveloped and he was probably focusing on something in the background that was more interesting. Besides, babies don't recognize faces for a few months after birth. Only later did we find out that our doctor was an idiot. He was 16 mos. old when his little brother was born and he was walking and making wishes known by pulling me or my wife by the hand to whatever he wanted etc. He was fascinated with the wheels on toys. If you gave him a truck he'd turn it over and spin the wheels and smile. Only later would I find out this is a major warning sign. This was our first born and what the hell did I know?
Read more