etan@tellab1.UUCP (Nate Stelton) (07/24/84)
I'd make a terrible newsman, but here goes. Lemont, IL. At 5:52 PM Monday afternoon an explosion at an oil refinery owned by Union Oil Co. occurred. The blast set off a runaway fire that 150 firefighters battled for five hours. A thirty-five ton refinery tower was hurled through the air about a mile and knocked down a high-tension power line tower causing an outage for 10,000 customers. The number of deaths at this time is unknown. I live about 3.5 miles from the site where the blast occurred, at the top of a valley. The power in our home winked for a split-second, then the house MOVED. It felt like a huge tree fell on top of us! The next-door neighbors' alarm system went off (they weren't home), and I thought maybe this was WWIII. Apparently, we were extremely lucky that no windows broke because many homes a little closer lost all their windows, and their plaster walls and ceilings cracked. People I spoke with this morning who live 15+ miles away felt the shock wave at an alarming intensity. The physical experience of the shock wave was not a bang or snap, but a soft, low-frequency push with hitherto unimaginable force. From Lemont Illinois, this is etan