Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

The next global crisis could come from the sun. We should prepare now.

Lily James shows off train at Met Gala

Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge U.S. and the West 

Book excerpt: The admiral who had a mental breakdown over Fat Leonard

A guide to the 2024 Alexandria Democratic primary election 

Postal worker finds WWII-era letters, drives 5 hours to deliver them

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Boeing Starliner space launch delayed at least until Friday

Indiana primary election 2024: Latest updates on governor, House races

Substack courts TikTokers with new ‘creators’ program

France tries to shed its rude reputation ahead of the Olympics

Don’t be a jerk at the airport: A guide for headphones

The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip 

The right’s enthusiasm for hyperbole is doing Trump no legal favors

Middle East conflict live updates: IDF takes control of Rafah border crossing; Biden denounces Hamas, antisemitism in address

Baseball can crush rookies. Why hasn’t it crushed Trey Lipscomb?

Eddie Rosario and Co. lead the Nats to an MLB-best 12th comeback win

CJ Abrams keeps getting better. It’s time to think about an extension.

Miss Manners: Greeting a non-parent on Mother’s or Father’s Day 

Ask Amy: I’ve lied about being a Vietnam War veteran for 50 years

Carolyn Hax: Husband admits to one-night stand, wants spouse to ‘let it go’

The crisis Biden and Trump don’t want to deal with

Russia is using toxic chemical weapons, wrecking a ban it helped create

Triumphal Putin is inaugurated for fifth term as Russian president 

Ukraine arrests two colonels in protective service in plot to kill Zelensky

House Republicans hold a press conference in advance of tonightÕs State of the Union, on March 01 in Washington, DC.

Reporting on Earth’s changing climate and the search for solutions

See more coverage in your recommendations

Climate & environment

The Climate Coach newsletter

Climate alerts

A group of first responders exposed to smoke from a Crosby, Tex., chemical plant fire after Hurricane Harvey are suing the owner of the plant for more than $1 million, saying that they vomited and gasped for air in the middle of the road in a scene the suit describes as “nothing less than chaos.”

The responders allege that the plant owner, Arkema, minimized the dangers of exposure to the fire and failed to warn the responders manning the perimeter of the mandatory 1.5 mile evacuation area to move farther away from the fumes after the first of nine trailers full of volatile organic peroxide burst into flames in the early nighttime hours of Aug. 29.

“Immediately upon being exposed to the fumes from the explosion, and one by one, the police officers and first responders began to fall ill in the middle of the road,” says the lawsuit, which was filed in a Harris County, Tex., court on Thursday. The responders’ lawyer, Mo Aziz, said they initially saw no smoke in the darkness.

[The science behind the U.S.’s strange hurricane ‘drought’ — and its sudden end]

“Emergency personnel arrived on scene, and even before exiting their vehicle, they became overcome by the fumes as well,” the lawsuit adds. “The scene was nothing less than chaos. Police officers were doubled over vomiting, unable to breathe. Medical personnel, in their attempts to provide assistance to the officers, became overwhelmed and they too began to vomit and gasp for air.”

The lawsuit also said that some police officers, unable to abandon their vehicles with weapons in them, drove themselves to the nearest hospital. Other responders were taken by ambulance.

The company said it regretted that anyone suffered harm, particularly first responders.

“We reject any suggestion that we failed to warn of the danger of breathing the smoke from the fires at our site, or that we ever misled anyone,” Arkema said in a statement. ” To the contrary, we pleaded with the public, for their own safety, to respect the 1.5 mile evacuation zone imposed by the unified command well prior to any fire.  We will vigorously defend a lawsuit that we believe is gravely mistaken.”

The responders said they were at the 1.5 mile perimeter.

Separately, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday ordered Arkema, a French multinational company, to provide a detailed timeline of events and to respond within 10 days to questions about the handling of organic peroxides, which are combustible if not kept refrigerated, the amount of chemical materials, and the measures taken in advance to guard against flooding and loss of electricity.

After the loss of refrigeration led to an evacuation of the plant, Arkema executives and the Harris County fire marshal’s office warned people to stay at least 1.5 miles away, a distance the lawsuit calls “arbitrary.”

Arkema and fire officials have avoided calling the smoke from the fires toxic.

The company initially called the smoke inhaled by police officers as a “nontoxic irritant.” When pressed by reporters at an Aug 31 news conference, Rich Rennard, president of Arkema’s North American operations, said  “the smoke is certainly noxious.” But he added that toxicity is “a relative thing.” And he said “it’s not a chemical release that’s happening, and I want to be clear about that.”

At another news conference, Rennard was asked whether responders should “consider that ash to be more dangerous than something from a campfire or normal fire?” He replied that “it’s debris that would be similar to a house fire.”

Asked on Aug. 31 about how dangerous the chemical fire was, Robert W. Royall, assistant chief of emergency operations for the Harris County Fire Marshal’s office, told The Washington Post: “That’s really relative. If you’re standing right next to something and you had a chemical release, it would probably be pretty dangerous. But we have a mile and half safety radius and there’s nobody in that plant.” He added, “You don’t go stick your head in a barbecue pit or anything. You wouldn’t want to breath that smoke in.’’

The lawsuit was filed by Houston attorneys Kimberely M. Spurlock and Misty A. Hataway-Coné of Spurlock & Associates and Mo Aziz of Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Sorrels, Agosto & Aziz. Collectively, they are representing a group of seven first responders who claim to have been injured from a release of toxic chemicals from the Arkema plant. About 15 responders were treated for exposure.

The suit accuses Arkema of negligence for failing to adequately prepare for an extreme flood, improperly storing chemicals at the plant, and not having a more reliable backup form of refrigeration.

The company has failed to answer questions from The Post about whether the backup diesel generators were elevated or whether they were resting on the floor of the plant, which eventually was under six feet of water.

Shared the following: 2020 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism for climate change series "2C: Beyond the Limit." 2011 Sigma Delta Chi award for "Breakaway Wealth"; 2012 American Geophysical Union's David Perlman award for explanatory earthquake coverage; 2009 Association of Food Journalists for project; 1988 Alicia Pattterson Foundation fellowship

"Fighting Years; Black Resistance and the Struggle for a New South Africa" 

Keystone XL: Down the Line 

Yale University, BA in economics and political science

Steven Mufson covers the business of climate change for The Washington Post. Since joining The Post in 1989, he has covered economic policy, China, diplomacy, energy and the White House. Earlier, he worked for The Wall Street Journal. In 2020, he shared the Pulitzer Prize for a climate change series "2C: Beyond the Limit."

Steven Mufson

Pulitzer Prize, explanatory reporting, 2020

Pulitzer Prize finalist, explanatory reporting, 2009

Pulitzer Prize finalist, national reporting, 2021

Society of Environmental Journalists, Outstanding Explanatory Reporting, first place, 2020

Scripps Howard National Journalism Award for human interest storytelling, 2006

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Brady Dennis is a Pulitzer Prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, focusing on environmental and climate stories, primarily around the Southeast. He previously has covered the Environmental Protection Agency, international climate policy, the Food and Drug Administration and  the nation’s economy. 

Brady Dennis

The Washington Post

Environment

Weather

Climate Solutions

Climate Lab

Green Living

Business of Climate

Climate

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/climate-environment&limit=20

Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter and get advice for life on our changing planet, in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.

Washington Post coverage of climate and environment-related issues.

prism://prism.query/tag,climate202&limit=3

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-202-newsletters/the-climate-202/