which is a chemical at the plant and extreme ledee instruct tiff. they called in back up and began evacuating homes and businesses around that area. just about two hours later that s when the massive explosion occurred. it leveled about four to six blocks around the facility. so many folks are not able to be in their homes this evening because there was an evacuation area about 10 blocks around that plant. joining us on the phone now is jake herald. jake, are you still with us? yes, ma am. jake, you work at the comfort suites in hillsboro, but you were home at the time. can you set it up for our viewers not only how far you are from the location of the blast, but what you still felt right around 80:00 last 8:00 last night? well i am 15 miles from where the explosion happened. i woke up around 8:00 and it was actually my fiancee who was scared thinking it was either an earthquake or a
morning. you have certainly made our coverage, todd. we appreciate it. thanks, elizabeth. talk to you soon. joining us now on the phone is jake herald. he works at the comfort ip in hillsboro the comfort inn in hillsboro. he is originally from the town of west, texas. i understand you are in hillsboro which is 20 miles from the blast site in west, texas. first and foremost before an update on your clients there, did you also feel the blast late last night? yes, ma am. it went on for about 15, 20 seconds, shook the entire house. so you were home at the time or were you at work at the time? i was at home at the time. so you said it shook for about 15 to 20 seconds. initially did you think it was an earthquake? what was your reaction? i had no idea. my fiancee thought it was an earthquake. there was a lot of people confused. there are updates on facebook asking if we were okay because there was an earthquake in the
0 suffer from the smoke inhalation and we are learning that the fumes were toxic. i believe it is anhurst ammonia, and you can correct me if i am wrong. that sounds pretty dangerous. i don t know my chemicals like i probably should, so i don t know the long-term impact of that, but our respiratory therapists are on site and we had almost a dozen of them available that knew what they were doing in order to treat these patients effectively along with the doctors who are caring for them. they had the right skills and the equipment to take care of their needs. unsure of what that looks like. right, and you said there were 65 patients admitted. can you give me a good idea, are you still treating those folks? have some people been sent home? out of the 65 that came here, there are still quite a few that are still here that we continue to treat. most of them will go home. we will admit probably 10 to 12 of those tonight for at least the night and observe them. probably the critical pati