Explosion At Jacksonville, Fla. Chemical Plant - 3 Missing

Here are somelinks if you want to follow the latest:

http://www.news4jax.com/index.html Channel 4 tv

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/ channel 12 tv

http://www.mycw17.com/ channel 17 tv

http://www.fox30online.com/ channel 30 tv

http://www.cbs47.com/ channel 47 tv

http://jacksonville.com/ Florida Times Union local paper

More seven hurt, three missing.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Three people are missing after an explosion and fire at a Jacksonville chemical plant. And at least seven people are being treated in area hospitals. Fire rescue spokesman Tom Francis says six people were initially missing at the plant of T2 Laboratories -- but three have been found. He could not say what their condition was. The explosion sent flames and debris into the sky.

More:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Dec. 19 (UPI) -- At least two people were reported dead in an explosion described as "gunshot-type" at a chemical plant in Jacksonville, Fla., officials said Wednesday.

Police cordoned off the area surrounding the explosion site in an industrial section of the city, CNN reported. At least 15 fire trucks were at the scene.

Whether other people were injured was not immediately determined.

Carlton Higginbotham, 63, was at home working when a loud bang rocked his house, he said.

"It was a gunshot-type explosion. It wasn't a rumble," he said.

Higginbotham said he and a neighbor went outside and saw a thick plume of smoke rising up on the other side of the St. John's River, which separates his neighborhood from the industrial area.

"The cloud that came out of it was white, some would say mushroom-shaped," Higginbotham told CNN. "It was followed by dark, dark smoke."

Update: 3 missing, explosion four stories high.

Those are the early reports - you can scan Google News for more.

Update at 3:35 p.m. ET: The scene is "a literally hellish inferno. There's no other way to describe it," Tom Francis, public information officer for the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department, just told reporters. He said five people had been injured and three people were missing; he did not confirm any deaths.

A CNN weather forecaster just reported that debris in the air near the plant was thick enough to appear on local Doppler weather radar.

Update at 3:50 p.m.: The company manufactures an octane booster known as Ecotane and other "low environmental impact specialty chemicals that replace conventional toxic and dangerous industrial chemicals," according to its website. The Times-Union is quoting a witness as saying, "In all seriousness, the explosion was four stories high."

Comments

[JustADude]

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/121907/met_226959477.shtml
local coverage

[JustADude]

Second sad event in a little over a week.

The last one was the parking garage collapse that killed one person.

[Fred Beloit]

Wonder what exactly a "gunshot-type" explosion is. I do know the sound a rifle makes, a gunshot-type of sound. Likewise a pistol shot. Perhaps Mr. Higginbotham has been around many different types of explosions.