#longview

No one outside the Pacific Northwest has heard of Longview, Washington. Those who live in the region have occasionally glimpsed it from a car window as they drive on interstate 5, to Portland or Washington. Longview is one of many small American cities with a blue collar community and no real claim to fame. There are no cultural landmarks, no great museums or colleges or really anything of note, so many people dismiss it as a working class town ready for gentrification. I know Longview differently. Although I do not live in the town, I work at the local hospital, and have made friends with incredible people there. Hard working folks who will show up for you if you need them. Grumpy older men that still say "hey, you ok?". People who take their children to the local city lake on sunny days, who attend the annual squirrel festival, who raise families and care for each other.

And many of those people work at the local mill.

First opened in 1953 by Weyerhauser, the paper mill has helped the town survive the bust of the once booming timber industry. Even as appropriate environmental regulations have forced other plants to close, the mill remains a feature of Longview. Sure, residents will complain about the smell (I've bitched about it multiple times), but the mill provides a stable career for people in a town without a lot of prospects. Unlike Portland or Seattle, there aren't a slew of community colleges and universities to provide training and education for residents. Longview locals can enter the mill fresh out of high school and immediately have a career to support families and buy houses and live a good life. It's dangerous work, but it's paid well and the union is strong.

On Tuesday May 26th, just after seven o' clock, a tank containing almost a million gallons of white liquor exploded.

The phrase "white liquor" isn't scary. It brings to mind white Russians and vodka. But it isn't actually alcohol. Instead, it's a chemical composed of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide, and is used in the first step of paper production. Similar to lye, sold as drain cleaners and used in soap making, white liquor is a highly alkaline chemical which breaks the bonds between the molecules of wood and turns it into a workable slurry. According to the chemical safety data sheet, the following protective equipment is recommended when working around white liquor: gloves, goggles, aprons, respirators. A single drop, former employee warns, will eat through your skin. If aerosolized, the white liquor causes horrible chemical burns in your lungs. A splash to the skin needs immediate flushing of about thirty minutes, and will require medical care. Be careful when working with the white liquor, the safety posters say, and the subtext is clear: it's dangerous, you blue collar idiots who probably failed high school chemistry! Even a splatter is bad!

When the tank suddenly failed, the flood of chemicals rushed through one section of the mill, even reaching the parking lot and beginning to dissolve cars. But adjacent to the tank was a breakroom, and in the breakroom, the millwrights and other employees were having their morning work huddle. The scene is all too easy to picture, since we've all been there. Standing and sitting and sipping coffee, groggy from Memorial Day barbeques, people were clustered in that room. And then, the tank suddenly collapses. Perhaps there was a loud creaking as the metal gave way. Perhaps the hundred of thousands of gallons of liquid made a sound as it rushed free of containment. Perhaps some of the people in that breakroom saw it happen, or perhaps none of them knew something was wrong until they were knee deep in caustic liquid. Some were able to escape, with mild burns. Some could not flee in time. Firefighters responded quickly to the scene, but there was confusion as to the nature of the liquid, and some rushed in unprepared. Later, a firefighter would be treated for chemical burns at the hospital.

Less than an hour after the initial explosion, a mass casualty event was called at the local hospital. The Emergency Department, chronically understaffed and overfilled, was woefully underprepared for the flood of victims. But they tried. Oh, how they tried. Longview is small enough that chances are high that some of the ED staff knew the victims, either well or distantly. The smell of burnt flesh lingered in the exam rooms. Patients were life flighted to hospitals down south, better equipped to handle the severe burns. There is not much more I can say without breaching confidentiality.

There is no definitive number of the injured, but the death count is at eleven people. Eleven people lost their lives. Eleven families are wrecked beyond belief. Many were new fathers, often the breadwinners of the families. These families are grieving and planning funerals, although some will not have bodies to bury- the caustic white liquor has dissolved flesh and muscle and perhaps even bone, to the point that remains have to be decontaminated before being sent to pathology. Interspersed with the grief is anger and fear. Anger that the mill did not replace the tank when it was decommissioned, one former employee says. Fear that the investigation will reveal insurmountable safety violations and the mill will close. Hundreds of people will lose their careers, and well paying jobs are hard to come by in Longview. It will be a crippling blow to an already struggling town.