time. in sight right now. as long as there is a demand to fly to dallas, the military will fly in the c-130s. and many people have been evacuated and this c-130 is being being loaded up and people are aboard and it will leave shortly. coy tell you right now, there are still several buses outside of this airport and they too are waiting to board the plane tods fly to a new life. gary, i m glad you are there. so many important stories to tell. and so many different parts of the state, louisiana as well. more now on the arkema fire. the epa has just released a statement. for an update to brian todd. what do we know about the fire? well, aerpd anderson, the fire was horrific looking. huge plumes from the arkema plant starting this afternoon. we do know what caused. it i ll talk about that in a second. but we need to tell you about the epament they posted a
information. they back tracked from a promise they made at a press conference to me. now we re stuck with essentially we know they are organic peroxides. i have some idea from an older chemical inventory. the public should be safe from the fumes and smoke and the fire as long as they re not within a mile and a half of the facility where the evacuation zone is, but there s still a lot of other stuff on that site. and the concern for a lot of people is what happens if something happens to those things s things. that s the other thing. you till have more fires to burn. i m wondering, at some point is there not a public safety consideration that gives the people who live and work around the arkema plant the legal right to know what is in those plumes of smoke. it s kind of shocking i think for the rest of the country that they have no right to know. right. in fact, the ceo of the company said that the reason they decided not to provide the tier two, the chemical inventory was
there are six more to go. residents remain evacuated for 1.5 miles around the plant. state and company officials have been saying that the smoke is noxious and that people should avoid it, but they insist it s not seriously dangerous. that said, we still don t know exactly what s inside the plant because neither arkema nor the state of texas will release a detailed inventory of the chemicals there. joining us by phone is matt dempsey and he s been writing about the dangers of texas chemical plants and has been pressing arkema executives for information about exactly what chemicals are in that plant. matt, thanks for joining us. do you know any more tonight about what s in the chemical mixture that s spewing into the air out of that plant than you did last night? no, we don t. it s the same situation. in fact the only thing we know for sure is that arkema is refusing to provide the
northeast of houston. this is a chemical plant, arkema plant. our correspondent matt finn is in houston. joins us now by a phone. we are looking, math, at these huge claims, these plumes of smoke. authorities say they expected it to happen. it looks like it s happening again, one of these containers. well, bret, one of the most concerning things yesterday we were unable to establish how any irritants might be. we were getting so much conflicting information first from the sheriff who said, his guys are in the radius, it s mike s breathing and smoke from a campfire. a short while later, an executive from this chemical plant, arkema, got in front of the camera and said if you re in the radius, you need to close your windows. later in the evening, homeland security advisor tom foster said that at one point in the 5-mile radius, you are seeing those black plumes, you need to get
this was the arkema chemical plant in crosby, texas last night. the plant has been without power for days submerged under flood waters from hurricane harvey. and as the organic peroxides they produce have lost refrigeration, those chemicals have begun heating up and igniting. this was the fire yesterday after one container exploded. arkema executives warned that there were eight more containers of those peroxides on the site. the plant had 500,000 pounds of the stuff and the company said there was nothing to be done but to wait for the other containers to ignite as well. this is the chemical plant as of this evening. the company says two more containers have gone up in flames. as you can see, the flames and that black plume of smoke are just massive.