Toxic Gas Leak Diverts Traffic
A toxic gas leak at a Carson chemical plant Saturday morning halted nearby traffic and almost led to the evacuation of a square-mile area containing an oil refinery and homes.
The leak at Stauffer Chemical Co., 20720 Wilmington Ave., occurred hours after a fire there damaged a building housing two tanks filled with sulfur trioxide.
The sulfur trioxide, which forms sulfuric acid when released into the air, leaked from a pipe on a tank inside the storage building where a wooden roof burned late Friday afternoon. The Los Angeles County Fire Department said the pipe could have been damaged in the fire.
Fire officials said a sulfuric acid cloud formed over the Stauffer plant shortly before 7 a.m. Saturday. Preparations were made to evacuate the adjacent Shell Oil Co. refinery and about 100 homes north of Del Amo Boulevard, but Stauffer crews clamped the leaking pipe and the cloud dissipated before anyone was moved out.
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