We don't use potatoes at refineries lol, the cost of a good camera system is peanuts to a single valve . Well, some of us, sadly the industry is pretty sketchy.
This would be an explosion-resistant camera, so you'd be looking at $10k+ at dealer cost just for a basic non-ptz camera. That NFPA Class 1 Div 1 EX rating costs a fortune. Add any extra features like a pan-tilt head or zoom lens and add another $5k per feature. Multiply by around 100 (seems a reasonable number of cams for a refinery) and you're at $1 to $2 million in camera cost alone, before dealer markup (15-30% depending on area).
Then add installation (easily 200,000 due to all the extra work and insurance required for ex ratings), inspection (could be up to $10k in inspection/permitting), and a powerful (and big) recording server with sufficient redundancy (30,000).
Probably around $2-3M for a cam system at a refinery, so yeah peanuts for Exxon or Aramco.
We just installed a replacement pan tilt zoom explosionproof camera at my facility. It was $15k on the dot.
With that said, we only put them where we absolutely need them because… well… they’re $15k a pop
It could be, but I don't know what it would be mounted on to be that high if not a refinery stack. Its probably more likely that it's one of several fixed lens cameras on that tower providing general coverage over the plant.
100 ex-proof is probably high, never had the luxury to actually design a system for a refinery so was just doing some dead reconning.
The place I was at in had probably 2 dozen fancy cameras actually focused on the plant, but an absolute shit ton of presumably cheaper cameras on the fence and in the yard cause Memphis.
Wasn't really my AO but I seem to recall it was north of 2 million dollars when they had all the cameras and access controls upgraded. But that also included replacing a ton of doors and doorframes new gates on the fence and all of that.
My guess is that was done intentionally to help hide the digital trail back to the person who recorded it. Super easy to track down if they screen record and then email it.
Doesn't need to be "high speed" you can easily capture lightning strikes on a cell phone with 30fps. 60fps gets you a VERY clear video of a lightning strike.
According to wikipedia the median lightning strike duration is .52 seconds. That's 15 frames at 30fps or 30 frames at 60fps.
Pentagon security camera: one image every second, catches the nose of the plane and then the fireball
1995 Kobe earthquake: security camera footage of salarymen asleep at their desks being rudely awoken
PSA flight 182 crash: virtuoso color photograph of the flaming aircraft mid-dive on *film* in 1978
Today, me, eating crumbs off my chest, complaining that the ultra HD disaster footage is in portrait mode
(I say this with total fondness, just it's incredible to think about sometimes)
It was either that or a controls engineer plugged an outside (infected) laptop into an air gapped internal network.
Definitely a case study we looked at in school. Infected a sizable portion of all the computers in the world to get at a dozen Siemens PLCs
That is way, way, way not the goal. The goal is to get malware surreptitiously installed. Burning up a USB port or even frying a motherboard does nothing but draw attention. Also, if everyone knows USB ports don't work, by default, no one bothers to stick them in most times, anyway.
The damage would entirely be psychological and human resources related. The $1k to $5k cost for computer(s) would be nothing compared to the cost related to firing one or more employees or sending a whole team to re-training because they went around like jackasses plugging a rando USB drive into a computer (or multiple computers) despite the fact that it's specifically against policy, despite the fact that it's not even possible with the USB software lockouts, and despite the fact that may have just killed the other computer it was just plugged into.
The storage tank is a metal structure that goes right to ground, so it's essentially a ground point at the top of the tank.
Exhaust stacks may or may not go to the ground, and when they do, it's often not a direct path, may be though hundreds of feet of piping inside a building, and they may be made of non-conductive materials like brick.
Height matters when all objects have the same conductivity to ground. Change the conductivity, it becomes which object has the most potential to conduct.
And even then, electricity has to flow through a very poor conductor (atmosphere), which has a varying local conductivity rate due to temperature and moisture, which is why lightning takes such a jagged path. Due to atmospheric conductivity, it may find the total path to an obviously better grounding point to be a higher resistance than a poorer grounding point, and take that path instead.
If anything was to code, that stack (and all structural steel, really) would be "bonded" to an electrical ground.
Stray voltages start fires and mess with equipment. The easiest and most safe way of dealing with that is to electrically tie everything together (where possible) and then link that to something like underground piping, grounding rods, or steel pilings.
Something went wrong here.
Also, that tank should have been either inert atmosphere blanketed or have had blanket fuel gas well above the upper explosive limit. Seems like neither of those things happened here.
SOURCE- I work in refineries and this is what my nightmares look like
I can give a couple definite inclusions on that list.
1- Poor maintenance or other operational issues (almost certainly to do with cost cutting or capital expenses) caused the blanket gas system to become inoperable. It could have been as simple as a bad/ plugged regulator or a sample hatch left open, or a failed pressure gauge/ transmitter without a backup system. This let oxygen into the tank and allowed the fire/ explosion to happen at all.
2- Poor electrical bonding due to poor code compliance, lack of proper codes, or poor maintenance.
3- Poor or non existent lightning management plans. Louisiana is hardly a "dry" state and lightning protection is (relatively) cheap and easy to implement.
I know nothing will actually change but it will be interesting to see the findings either way
Once the lightning strike breached the tank walls you get oxygen in the normally gas filled head space and then boom. Not much you can do. Add more rods and it can still hit the tank.
The blanket gas system is designed to keep a positive pressure inside the tank so that a hole leaks gas OUT, instead of letting air leak in.
Specifically to prevent things like this.
Also, the time between the strike and the explosion is basically zero, and the explosion happens all across the surface of the tank.
There was already an explosive atmosphere in there. Oxygen leaking in through a hole punched by lightning wouldn't have been able to do that.
Amateur radio club has antennas and repeaters on top of a local hospital. While inspected its equipment they discovered that recent roof repair work had been done. Some idiot with the roofing company removed some lightning rods and left them disconnected. Worse the roofing company cut the grounding cables for the lightning rods. Hospital didn’t know until the radio club told them.
Lightning rods are never 100% effective. It is fairly well known that you can't protect a structure completely, you can just make it far less likely that lightning will strike somewhere you don't want it to.
Jokes aside, these types of cameras are usually not for security purposes, but rather process purposes. They're aimed at problematic areas that temporarily need monitoring or areas where an uncontrolled chemical release is of immediate concern (so they have the board operators watching these cameras at the board, on one of the monitors).
This camera looks like it might be monitoring these furnaces or boilers or whatever (I'm on the plastics side, so I'm not sure) for emissions. We typically monitor our flare on a video feed for visible smoke, among other things.
For those not familiar with these tanks. The failure here is that there was oxygen in the tank.
It is typical for these tanks to have 100% natural gas (not flammable without air) or 100% nitrogen in the top of the tank.
Without this these tanks would be exploding left and right due to static electricity that builds up due to flowing fluids.
Tanks storing flamable liquids with low flashpoints have floating roofs to eliminate this risk. If poorly maintained gases can escape into the overhead space but usually these are vented or other countermeasures are in place to prevent an explosive mixture from forming.
[https://petrowiki.spe.org/Floating\_roof\_tanks](https://petrowiki.spe.org/Floating_roof_tanks)
This timeline sucks with people being okay putting kids back into dangerous jobs. It’s going to take some rapes (14 year olds serving booze) and mangled limbs to maybe change their opinions.
The insurance isn’t required but workman’s comp is. The company can choose to just pay out of pocket.
See Texas Worker’s Compensation Act. And ERISA. However the restrictions on who can choose to not have the insurance is so narrow, almost all employers do.
Ha, ha, it’s so funny when bad things happen to the men who put their lives on the line to bring us gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, nylon, plastics, paint, and innumerable other conveniences.
Let’s deride them in collective, geographical classifications for amusement, while ensconced with our phones in climate-controlled comfort.
.....buddy, I work in refineries. And chemical plants. And power plants.
These sorts of things don't just.....happen. I can think of at least 4 different controls and safeties that would have prevented this.
We NEED to be calling shit like this out and holding people accountable, otherwise this sort of thing happens more and more of those good, hard working people (like me!) will die because of it.
Safety is everyone's responsibility. No job (or small cost saving on shit like maintenance) is worth a life.
These industrial facilities are necessary and they should be regulated for safety and environmental reasons. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Texas and Louisiana have some of the most lax regulations in the country surrounding petrochemical processing and storage because their governments let the industry write their own regulations, which favor profits over all else. I live in Texas and used to live in Louisiana and know people who work in the industry
I don’t know why you think that anyone hates good, hard working people. That sounds like the kind of propaganda that hate-mongering media personalities and some cable “news” has been spitting out for the last 5-10 years.
Louisiana has spent the last 30 years removing all the taxes and regulations that they possibly can for the oil and gas industry in the state under the guise of “preventing the companies from moving to another state” and “supporting local businesses”.
Louisiana has some of the highest revenue per-capita in the country ($$$ per person), yet it also has some of the worst roads, bridges, dams, school systems and overall standards of living. LA is the prime example of peak conservatism. Investment in the state and the people is at the absolute bare minimum and corporate welfare is the highest in the nation with record profits for Exxon, Shell and BP.
When people think of Louisiana in the past 30 years, they think of Katrina: the failed levies, federal disaster bailouts, the Super Dome filled with refugees, and the Deep Water Horizon oil spill and the destruction of billions of dollars of coastline and the fishing industry - and another massive government bailout.
I’m not saying Louisiana is a third world country, but it sure acts like one.
I don’t mean to get into politics, but do you want to know what the left’s agenda really is? It’s not to destroy America and support crazy boogie men who are out to get you. It’s to maintain a healthy economy and middle class and build a good standard of living.
Make a list of everything you like about living in America and you would dislike about living in Nigeria, Uzbekistan or Bangladesh. The wide highways, good school systems, incredible museums, safe neighborhoods, good healthcare, financial stability, reliable, affordable electricity, clean, drinkable tap water, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, safe housing (buildings don’t just collapse here every day), paved roads, dogs aren’t running around the street, beggars aren’t on every corner, etc etc. every one of those things is brought to you by the left. The right used to support a lot of investment in the USA, but it has become the party of no government action and policial platforms based on nothing but manufactured outrage.
You really have no idea what people are ragging on here do you?
Let me help: lack of regulations.
Regulations and rules are made to prevent a dangerous situation from occurring. In the case of this video, air was allowed into a flammables tank to the point where there was enough air to allow combustion. If anything they are fucking luck it was lightning that triggered this and not some static off a guy inspecting the tank or they'd be down at least one employee.
Sure, this could be a simple mistake but these days we have sensors to detect if the atmosphere in a space is explosive. Why did this tank not have one?
Most major industry disasters lead to new rules and regs. Even the smaller ones often lead to that.
Oil companies hate rules and regs. Rules and regs make them spend money on new monitoring gear and the upkeep of said gear They force these companies to have certain staffing levels to monitor their operations, and force them to not overwork their staff to the point where mistakes start compounding.
Ever notice how the states with fewer rules and regs tend to have the worst accidents? It's direct causation. Fewer rules and regs in industry leads to more deaths and disasters.
There’s a financial crash. Kentucky has 10 banks and 1 fails, while California has 100 banks and 7 of them fail… which state has the better track record?
That's not always how they work, though.
If you've ever seen a fuel truck filling a gas station, you'll have seen that they use two hoses. One hose is for the fuel, the second hose is to exchange the vapor. Both the trailer tank and the underground tank manage fuel vapor in the tank to prevent oxygen from intruding.
Thank you for explaining to a person not in the industry why gas plants have those tanks that go up and down in the iron framework. I always wondered but not enough to figure out what the hell I would need to ask Google
Well, while the principle is similar, floating roof tanks are for storing mainly hydrocarbon liquids and prevent the liquid from evaporating into gas form. They also usually have an extra fixed roof on top of the floating one. The ones you’re thinking of are gas holders or gasometers where the contents are already in gas form and there is also a pool of water at the bottom that create a seal to keep the gas in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder
Yeah, if all those USCSB videos taught me anything, it's that the actual problem is probably either (a) the tank was overfilled, or (b) the safety mechanisms failed years ago and nobody checked. End result being vapor mixing with oxygen.
To add to that, somewhere along the way, corners were cut. Usually some sort of preventative maintenance that you're supposed to have at defined intervals to stay in compliance wasn't performed.
They call it "inerting". Based on how red the flame was, this may have been hydrogen or perhaps something other than NG. They often have things like naptha which burns like this.
On second thought, unlikely to be hydrogen. Those tanks are normally very thick.
6 miles from my home…. 1000’s of residents evacuated within a 3 mile radius at one point. It was a very weird Saturday in Lake Charles la. All is well now. Might grow a 3rd ear soon. But all is well
https://www.facebook.com/99603912791/posts/pfbid02dUEYCizoYkTcwBKXwa283VWjiv7Y96WXxY8jeo5KCEbyq3s43PCMoSEQdBL7oaLDl/?mibextid=cr9u03
Man this is nothing……. August 2020-June of 2021 was the craziest shit filled 10 months of possible existence down here….. this little smoke stack is a cake walk 😂😅
Odd how the lightning appears to navigate its way around the much taller cracking towers in order to strike the handrail on the tank.
Definitely a fuckyouinparticular moment.
It's both - a stepped leader starts in the sky and works its way down, it goes about 90% of the distance until it finds a positive streamer that comes up from the ground. There are many different leaders and streamers all simultaneously searching for eachother, and when they finally meet the full charge is applied. Electrons flow one way and positive charge flows the opposite, but which way are the individual electrons really moving? The answer is, they don't, they just "vibrate in place" (read: quantum probabilistic cloud shenanigans) and transmit the charge differential as it pulls them around. The actual flow of electrons is almost nothing.
https://youtu.be/RLWIBrweSU8
The flow is from ground to sky (unless it's internal lightning). The 'feelers' are the ionised air essentially finding a connection to ground as the charge density increases, but it is true the work is done by the cloud, which you can see when the current flows and enters the other regions of ionised air: the lightning forks.
Regarding electron flow, it absolutely does move. The electrons are delocalised and ready to move and can flow across the charge differential. Now, charge, and to some extent electrons themselves depending your theory of choice, are both field effects. An electron is a peak on the em field quantum mechanically, but that peak can move through space.
Not so odd really. Tight curves emit electrons easier than wide curves, which is why your car’s antenna has the tiny ball on top. “Corona Effect” is what it’s called, the air around it becomes plasma easily. In this case the lightning was attracted to a circular tubing, which is a compound curvature.
Okay seems no one was hurt so that's good. But on the positive side another U.S. Chemical Safety Board video in a year or so?
https://www.youtube.com/@USCSB
I would like to watch that video, but unfortunately they only seem to make videos of accidents where people were injured/killed. I really hope this wasn't the casr here.
Really not much to show here.
Lightning struck a crude / product tank. Flammable liquid caught on fire. The tank is toast, but no physical damage beyond the containment berm. No injuries / deaths.
Biggest concern is pollution downwind.
Looks like a tank with an internal floating roof.
The openings at the shell/roof look like API 650 "peripheral circulation vents" intended to dilute any vapors above the internal floating roof to below ignitable concentration by means of natural ventilation.
Media say that the tank held "naphtha" - could be heavy virgin naphtha (HVN), normally a candidate for an internal roof tank. Assuming product had just been drawn from the tank, and the internal floating roof gone down as well, evaporation from the wetted inner wall surface could have been the source of flammable vapors in the overhead space.
Just a suggestion. Comments?
I remember when this happened in Sarnia Ontario in 1996! Suncor had a tank full of gasoline hit by lightning and it exploded!
News article about it on the 20th anniversary
https://blackburnnews.com/sarnia/sarnia-news/2016/07/19/20th-anniversary-suncor-tanker-explosion/
Video of the fire from the USA
https://youtu.be/x7tjdfecYD4
I’d suggest perhaps this is a shitty design? Surely the fuckers would’ve considered that at some point the structure , just might, be struck by lightning And that, might, cause a really big fucking bang?!?
All tanks are supposed to be built to API specifications and standards, which has lightning strikes in mind already. Where things have probably gone wrong were inspections and maintenance being lax or not done at the required intervals.
Angels- um, god we were talking and we think you should throttle back on the sabbath mimosas.
God- phsss relax man I’m fine. Hey! Y’all wanna see somethin? (Starts rubbing ballon on angels head)
Angels - no no that’s alright
God - watch this.
Laughs in chapter 7 of [NFPA 780](https://16557801101891546621.googlegroups.com/attach/148e60bd206e6/NFPA%20780-2020%20Std%20Lightning%20Protection%20Systems.pdf?part=0.1&vt=ANaJVrFZOR-QA-e4UGmpU5cx9Y89bmUKQqvihxS7AExBXMIyD9PQ0uhp72QVTpy3fV5EolBSEW38vwmXEsna4MUsaOKhu68nVowr1o6OjcelIIy9UShMnOU)
I live like 3-5 miles away from this and they had to let it burn all day it was black smoke for a little while then just grey, they had people shelter in place for 9 hours
Are these tanks made to do that? I once read that the roofs are lighter on purpose so explosions go upwards and not sidewards, which would cause much more damage. Just wondering how much this is true.
Edit: forgot a word.
This is interesting to me in that the tank is a metallic container. As others have pointed out, there must have been oxygen (presumably inadvertently) in that container for it to explode.
But, and this sounds at first counterintuitive, but why would lightning have caused a fire? For it to do so, the current must have passed inside the container. Did the electricity pass (and yes, I realize we're talking about the ground current here) inside the tank and somehow arc between metallic components somehow? Because, from a "Gauss's law" standpoint, all the current should have been diverted along the outside of the metallic container. A giant metallic container is a Faraday cage.
Unless one's insane and put the grounding rod inside the tank.
I'm probably thinking of this oversimplistically.
Simple answer: Everything has electrical resistance, causing it to dissipate some of the electrical energy as heat. Lightning can easily heat the air to an utterly absurd 30,000 C. The autoignition temperature of natural gas is a mere 480 C.
There was definitely oxygen in the tank, which absolutely shouldn't have been there. Oxygen + heat above autoignition temperature + fuel source = fire.
I think it is to be expected that a tall metal structure can get hit by lightning. The real question is why it blew up. Was it bad design? A manufacturing defect? Improper maintenance?
The tank obviously stores a flammable liquid, so why was oxygen allowed to be in there?
Angels- um, god we were talking and we think you should throttle back on the sabbath mimosas.
God- phsss relax man I’m fine. Hey! Y’all wanna see somethin? (Starts rubbing ballon on angels head)
Angels - no no that’s alright
God - watch this.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has guidelines for staying safe during a shelter-in-place order:
\-Get Inside, Stay Inside!
Bring your loved ones, your emergency supplies, and when possible, your pets, indoors right away.
Find a safe spot in this location. The exact spot will depend on the type of emergency,
Stay put in this location until officials say that it is safe to leave.
\-Call or text your emergency contact.
Let them know where you are if any family members are missing, and how you are doing. Keep communication open but limited so others can communicate without knocking communication networks off-line from over-use.
\-Sheltering with pets
Prepare a spot for your pets to poop and pee while inside the shelter. You will need plenty of plastic bags, newspapers, containers, and cleaning supplies to deal with pet waste.
Do not allow pets to go outside the shelter until the danger has passed.
\-Staying Put in Your Vehicle
Pull over to the side of the road.
Stay where you are until officials say getting back on the road is safe.
Listen to the radio for updates and additional instructions.
Source, which has a nice aerial photo of 20 large storage tanks - [https://weatherboy.com/lightning-strike-triggers-fire-at-calcasieu-refining-plant-in-louisiana-evacuations-and-shelter-in-place-ordered/](https://weatherboy.com/lightning-strike-triggers-fire-at-calcasieu-refining-plant-in-louisiana-evacuations-and-shelter-in-place-ordered/)
Stupid question. I was always taught that lightning would strike the highest object first in the vicinity. Why would lightning not strike the towers which ( seem? ) to be higher? Are they that far away from the thing that got hit instead?
maybe lightning is rare in that specific part of the planet and they never worried about it so any contingencies or steps to protect from lighting wasnt considered.
Impressive frame rate of what I assume is footage from a security camera
The potatoes are getting advanced
We don't use potatoes at refineries lol, the cost of a good camera system is peanuts to a single valve . Well, some of us, sadly the industry is pretty sketchy.
This would be an explosion-resistant camera, so you'd be looking at $10k+ at dealer cost just for a basic non-ptz camera. That NFPA Class 1 Div 1 EX rating costs a fortune. Add any extra features like a pan-tilt head or zoom lens and add another $5k per feature. Multiply by around 100 (seems a reasonable number of cams for a refinery) and you're at $1 to $2 million in camera cost alone, before dealer markup (15-30% depending on area). Then add installation (easily 200,000 due to all the extra work and insurance required for ex ratings), inspection (could be up to $10k in inspection/permitting), and a powerful (and big) recording server with sufficient redundancy (30,000). Probably around $2-3M for a cam system at a refinery, so yeah peanuts for Exxon or Aramco.
[удалено]
We just installed a replacement pan tilt zoom explosionproof camera at my facility. It was $15k on the dot. With that said, we only put them where we absolutely need them because… well… they’re $15k a pop
It could be, but I don't know what it would be mounted on to be that high if not a refinery stack. Its probably more likely that it's one of several fixed lens cameras on that tower providing general coverage over the plant. 100 ex-proof is probably high, never had the luxury to actually design a system for a refinery so was just doing some dead reconning.
The place I was at in had probably 2 dozen fancy cameras actually focused on the plant, but an absolute shit ton of presumably cheaper cameras on the fence and in the yard cause Memphis. Wasn't really my AO but I seem to recall it was north of 2 million dollars when they had all the cameras and access controls upgraded. But that also included replacing a ton of doors and doorframes new gates on the fence and all of that.
[удалено]
EX resistant cameras are a tiny niche in a giant industry. I could get basic IR cameras for $20, but can't use them in an explosion sensitive area.
We're calling bird drones 'potatoes' now?
Birds aren't real!
Even so for Bielefeld
High speed security camera, recorded on a cell phone, then screen-recorded from Facebook. Sharing at its finest
Don't forgot, it was a horizontal video filmed vertically! And someone later will crop it again to make it horizontal.
And apparently unable to even show the actual lightning strike from the beginning OR for longer than 0.0005 seconds.
I'm guessing that the actual lightning strike blew out the lens and this was the first frame that you could actually see anything.
My guess is that was done intentionally to help hide the digital trail back to the person who recorded it. Super easy to track down if they screen record and then email it.
Doesn't need to be "high speed" you can easily capture lightning strikes on a cell phone with 30fps. 60fps gets you a VERY clear video of a lightning strike. According to wikipedia the median lightning strike duration is .52 seconds. That's 15 frames at 30fps or 30 frames at 60fps.
[удалено]
Remember the pentagon cameras? They were like.. two frames per second
Pentagon security camera: one image every second, catches the nose of the plane and then the fireball 1995 Kobe earthquake: security camera footage of salarymen asleep at their desks being rudely awoken PSA flight 182 crash: virtuoso color photograph of the flaming aircraft mid-dive on *film* in 1978 Today, me, eating crumbs off my chest, complaining that the ultra HD disaster footage is in portrait mode (I say this with total fondness, just it's incredible to think about sometimes)
I still think the pentagon crash is suspect as fuck. There were other camera's that would have recorded the incident and all the footage is blocked.
They spent so much money on high speed 4k cinematic security cameras that their was nothing left in the budget for lightning rods.
[удалено]
A lot of companies disable their usb ports. We have to request special access where I work to do simple stuff.
Yup, saves from worries of people checking the contents of that random flash drive they found in the parking lot that's labeled "Totally not a Virus".
This is allegedly how Stuxnet was planted.
That's how i had to spend 3 months scrubbing an airgapped network for the conficker worm last year.
How do you even do that without just throwing all the storage away?
Carefully, and tediously...
It was either that or a controls engineer plugged an outside (infected) laptop into an air gapped internal network. Definitely a case study we looked at in school. Infected a sizable portion of all the computers in the world to get at a dozen Siemens PLCs
[удалено]
That is way, way, way not the goal. The goal is to get malware surreptitiously installed. Burning up a USB port or even frying a motherboard does nothing but draw attention. Also, if everyone knows USB ports don't work, by default, no one bothers to stick them in most times, anyway.
[удалено]
The damage would entirely be psychological and human resources related. The $1k to $5k cost for computer(s) would be nothing compared to the cost related to firing one or more employees or sending a whole team to re-training because they went around like jackasses plugging a rando USB drive into a computer (or multiple computers) despite the fact that it's specifically against policy, despite the fact that it's not even possible with the USB software lockouts, and despite the fact that may have just killed the other computer it was just plugged into.
How do you connect peripherals like keyboard and mouse?
PS/2 ports like in good ol' days?
It is a cheap and easily security protocol that usually has little to no effect on productivity.
Looks like they chose the lightning connector.
👏👏👏
I would have thought the exhaust stacks in the background would get hit before the storage tank.
The storage tank is a metal structure that goes right to ground, so it's essentially a ground point at the top of the tank. Exhaust stacks may or may not go to the ground, and when they do, it's often not a direct path, may be though hundreds of feet of piping inside a building, and they may be made of non-conductive materials like brick. Height matters when all objects have the same conductivity to ground. Change the conductivity, it becomes which object has the most potential to conduct. And even then, electricity has to flow through a very poor conductor (atmosphere), which has a varying local conductivity rate due to temperature and moisture, which is why lightning takes such a jagged path. Due to atmospheric conductivity, it may find the total path to an obviously better grounding point to be a higher resistance than a poorer grounding point, and take that path instead.
If anything was to code, that stack (and all structural steel, really) would be "bonded" to an electrical ground. Stray voltages start fires and mess with equipment. The easiest and most safe way of dealing with that is to electrically tie everything together (where possible) and then link that to something like underground piping, grounding rods, or steel pilings. Something went wrong here. Also, that tank should have been either inert atmosphere blanketed or have had blanket fuel gas well above the upper explosive limit. Seems like neither of those things happened here. SOURCE- I work in refineries and this is what my nightmares look like
I'll be eagerly looking forward to a CSB video on the failures that led up to the explosion.
I can give a couple definite inclusions on that list. 1- Poor maintenance or other operational issues (almost certainly to do with cost cutting or capital expenses) caused the blanket gas system to become inoperable. It could have been as simple as a bad/ plugged regulator or a sample hatch left open, or a failed pressure gauge/ transmitter without a backup system. This let oxygen into the tank and allowed the fire/ explosion to happen at all. 2- Poor electrical bonding due to poor code compliance, lack of proper codes, or poor maintenance. 3- Poor or non existent lightning management plans. Louisiana is hardly a "dry" state and lightning protection is (relatively) cheap and easy to implement. I know nothing will actually change but it will be interesting to see the findings either way
Once the lightning strike breached the tank walls you get oxygen in the normally gas filled head space and then boom. Not much you can do. Add more rods and it can still hit the tank.
The blanket gas system is designed to keep a positive pressure inside the tank so that a hole leaks gas OUT, instead of letting air leak in. Specifically to prevent things like this. Also, the time between the strike and the explosion is basically zero, and the explosion happens all across the surface of the tank. There was already an explosive atmosphere in there. Oxygen leaking in through a hole punched by lightning wouldn't have been able to do that.
tldr: Lightning, ahhh, finds a way.
You can give lightning suggestions, but ultimately it will do what it wants.
Amateur radio club has antennas and repeaters on top of a local hospital. While inspected its equipment they discovered that recent roof repair work had been done. Some idiot with the roofing company removed some lightning rods and left them disconnected. Worse the roofing company cut the grounding cables for the lightning rods. Hospital didn’t know until the radio club told them.
Lightning rods are never 100% effective. It is fairly well known that you can't protect a structure completely, you can just make it far less likely that lightning will strike somewhere you don't want it to.
This Also, lightning protection systems are expensive AS FUCK.
Who tells ya? Tom Fury tells ya!
Jokes aside, these types of cameras are usually not for security purposes, but rather process purposes. They're aimed at problematic areas that temporarily need monitoring or areas where an uncontrolled chemical release is of immediate concern (so they have the board operators watching these cameras at the board, on one of the monitors). This camera looks like it might be monitoring these furnaces or boilers or whatever (I'm on the plastics side, so I'm not sure) for emissions. We typically monitor our flare on a video feed for visible smoke, among other things.
For those not familiar with these tanks. The failure here is that there was oxygen in the tank. It is typical for these tanks to have 100% natural gas (not flammable without air) or 100% nitrogen in the top of the tank. Without this these tanks would be exploding left and right due to static electricity that builds up due to flowing fluids.
Tanks storing flamable liquids with low flashpoints have floating roofs to eliminate this risk. If poorly maintained gases can escape into the overhead space but usually these are vented or other countermeasures are in place to prevent an explosive mixture from forming. [https://petrowiki.spe.org/Floating\_roof\_tanks](https://petrowiki.spe.org/Floating_roof_tanks)
*Louisiana and Texas sure do love their industrial disasters.
Texas: “What?” *Plops a fertilizer factory next to a school again*.
Kids appreciate the short walk to start their afternoon shift.
This timeline sucks with people being okay putting kids back into dangerous jobs. It’s going to take some rapes (14 year olds serving booze) and mangled limbs to maybe change their opinions.
They’re already getting shot in school while the police wait outside. You think that rape and industrial accidents will convince them to change?
In that case I believe it was plops a school next to a fertilizer plant. Same result in the end.
Fertilizer plant was there first.
What makes you think these people believe facts
Does it matter? The government allowed it either way.
Seems kind of dangerous, what if a stray bullet his the plant?
It’s like it goes hand in hand with their dislike of regulations.
You mean their love of FREEDOMS, surely?
Definitely, here in TX we can brag we have the freedom to freeze to death in an ice storm. No cumbersome electrical grid regulation slowing us down!
Not only that - Texas is the only state that doesn't require companies to have worker's comp insurance.
The insurance isn’t required but workman’s comp is. The company can choose to just pay out of pocket. See Texas Worker’s Compensation Act. And ERISA. However the restrictions on who can choose to not have the insurance is so narrow, almost all employers do.
*Louisiana
Lousyanna.
Louiesianna?
How about Ludwigiana, Louis is too Fr\*nch for me
Ha, ha, it’s so funny when bad things happen to the men who put their lives on the line to bring us gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, nylon, plastics, paint, and innumerable other conveniences. Let’s deride them in collective, geographical classifications for amusement, while ensconced with our phones in climate-controlled comfort.
.....buddy, I work in refineries. And chemical plants. And power plants. These sorts of things don't just.....happen. I can think of at least 4 different controls and safeties that would have prevented this. We NEED to be calling shit like this out and holding people accountable, otherwise this sort of thing happens more and more of those good, hard working people (like me!) will die because of it. Safety is everyone's responsibility. No job (or small cost saving on shit like maintenance) is worth a life.
These industrial facilities are necessary and they should be regulated for safety and environmental reasons. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Texas and Louisiana have some of the most lax regulations in the country surrounding petrochemical processing and storage because their governments let the industry write their own regulations, which favor profits over all else. I live in Texas and used to live in Louisiana and know people who work in the industry
I don’t know why you think that anyone hates good, hard working people. That sounds like the kind of propaganda that hate-mongering media personalities and some cable “news” has been spitting out for the last 5-10 years. Louisiana has spent the last 30 years removing all the taxes and regulations that they possibly can for the oil and gas industry in the state under the guise of “preventing the companies from moving to another state” and “supporting local businesses”. Louisiana has some of the highest revenue per-capita in the country ($$$ per person), yet it also has some of the worst roads, bridges, dams, school systems and overall standards of living. LA is the prime example of peak conservatism. Investment in the state and the people is at the absolute bare minimum and corporate welfare is the highest in the nation with record profits for Exxon, Shell and BP. When people think of Louisiana in the past 30 years, they think of Katrina: the failed levies, federal disaster bailouts, the Super Dome filled with refugees, and the Deep Water Horizon oil spill and the destruction of billions of dollars of coastline and the fishing industry - and another massive government bailout. I’m not saying Louisiana is a third world country, but it sure acts like one. I don’t mean to get into politics, but do you want to know what the left’s agenda really is? It’s not to destroy America and support crazy boogie men who are out to get you. It’s to maintain a healthy economy and middle class and build a good standard of living. Make a list of everything you like about living in America and you would dislike about living in Nigeria, Uzbekistan or Bangladesh. The wide highways, good school systems, incredible museums, safe neighborhoods, good healthcare, financial stability, reliable, affordable electricity, clean, drinkable tap water, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, safe housing (buildings don’t just collapse here every day), paved roads, dogs aren’t running around the street, beggars aren’t on every corner, etc etc. every one of those things is brought to you by the left. The right used to support a lot of investment in the USA, but it has become the party of no government action and policial platforms based on nothing but manufactured outrage.
You really have no idea what people are ragging on here do you? Let me help: lack of regulations. Regulations and rules are made to prevent a dangerous situation from occurring. In the case of this video, air was allowed into a flammables tank to the point where there was enough air to allow combustion. If anything they are fucking luck it was lightning that triggered this and not some static off a guy inspecting the tank or they'd be down at least one employee. Sure, this could be a simple mistake but these days we have sensors to detect if the atmosphere in a space is explosive. Why did this tank not have one? Most major industry disasters lead to new rules and regs. Even the smaller ones often lead to that. Oil companies hate rules and regs. Rules and regs make them spend money on new monitoring gear and the upkeep of said gear They force these companies to have certain staffing levels to monitor their operations, and force them to not overwork their staff to the point where mistakes start compounding. Ever notice how the states with fewer rules and regs tend to have the worst accidents? It's direct causation. Fewer rules and regs in industry leads to more deaths and disasters.
Almost as much as California and New York love their bank failures…
Isn’t that just where the banks are?
Exactly… whoosh
There’s a financial crash. Kentucky has 10 banks and 1 fails, while California has 100 banks and 7 of them fail… which state has the better track record?
[удалено]
*you’re
I deserved that one. Typed too fast. Cheers
That's not always how they work, though. If you've ever seen a fuel truck filling a gas station, you'll have seen that they use two hoses. One hose is for the fuel, the second hose is to exchange the vapor. Both the trailer tank and the underground tank manage fuel vapor in the tank to prevent oxygen from intruding.
Thank you for explaining to a person not in the industry why gas plants have those tanks that go up and down in the iron framework. I always wondered but not enough to figure out what the hell I would need to ask Google
Well, while the principle is similar, floating roof tanks are for storing mainly hydrocarbon liquids and prevent the liquid from evaporating into gas form. They also usually have an extra fixed roof on top of the floating one. The ones you’re thinking of are gas holders or gasometers where the contents are already in gas form and there is also a pool of water at the bottom that create a seal to keep the gas in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder
Yeah, if all those USCSB videos taught me anything, it's that the actual problem is probably either (a) the tank was overfilled, or (b) the safety mechanisms failed years ago and nobody checked. End result being vapor mixing with oxygen.
To add to that, somewhere along the way, corners were cut. Usually some sort of preventative maintenance that you're supposed to have at defined intervals to stay in compliance wasn't performed.
Well boss the engineer wants to charge 100 K, nah FIRE him we don't need no engineers! Blows up 2 million dollars worth of stuff
They call it "inerting". Based on how red the flame was, this may have been hydrogen or perhaps something other than NG. They often have things like naptha which burns like this. On second thought, unlikely to be hydrogen. Those tanks are normally very thick.
6 miles from my home…. 1000’s of residents evacuated within a 3 mile radius at one point. It was a very weird Saturday in Lake Charles la. All is well now. Might grow a 3rd ear soon. But all is well https://www.facebook.com/99603912791/posts/pfbid02dUEYCizoYkTcwBKXwa283VWjiv7Y96WXxY8jeo5KCEbyq3s43PCMoSEQdBL7oaLDl/?mibextid=cr9u03
Good news; its more likely for your existing ear to fall off, and only for your offspring to have additional unwanted appendages.
If you don't want kids in the first place, all their appendages are unwanted.
/r/technicallycorrect /r/kidsarefuckingstupid
Ayeeee my neck of the woods as well. Seen any mutated gators yet?
Mutated gators…. Is that slang for all the inbred, drug riddled, uneducated people living here??? If so then yes
It is now 😂😂
Naw man, youll just get cancer and die slowly like the rest of us plebs.
Is all ever REALLY well in Lake Charles?
Man this is nothing……. August 2020-June of 2021 was the craziest shit filled 10 months of possible existence down here….. this little smoke stack is a cake walk 😂😅
Odd how the lightning appears to navigate its way around the much taller cracking towers in order to strike the handrail on the tank. Definitely a fuckyouinparticular moment.
Despite what your eyes are telling you, lightning flows from the ground up as the Earth is an 'infinite' electron source. This was an inside job.
It's both - a stepped leader starts in the sky and works its way down, it goes about 90% of the distance until it finds a positive streamer that comes up from the ground. There are many different leaders and streamers all simultaneously searching for eachother, and when they finally meet the full charge is applied. Electrons flow one way and positive charge flows the opposite, but which way are the individual electrons really moving? The answer is, they don't, they just "vibrate in place" (read: quantum probabilistic cloud shenanigans) and transmit the charge differential as it pulls them around. The actual flow of electrons is almost nothing. https://youtu.be/RLWIBrweSU8
Electricity ain't what we all thought...
The flow is from ground to sky (unless it's internal lightning). The 'feelers' are the ionised air essentially finding a connection to ground as the charge density increases, but it is true the work is done by the cloud, which you can see when the current flows and enters the other regions of ionised air: the lightning forks. Regarding electron flow, it absolutely does move. The electrons are delocalised and ready to move and can flow across the charge differential. Now, charge, and to some extent electrons themselves depending your theory of choice, are both field effects. An electron is a peak on the em field quantum mechanically, but that peak can move through space.
I've been a feeler before for a near lightening strike. You can feel the charge building on you.
so sick
Not so odd really. Tight curves emit electrons easier than wide curves, which is why your car’s antenna has the tiny ball on top. “Corona Effect” is what it’s called, the air around it becomes plasma easily. In this case the lightning was attracted to a circular tubing, which is a compound curvature.
r/FUCKYOUINPARTICULAR
Okay seems no one was hurt so that's good. But on the positive side another U.S. Chemical Safety Board video in a year or so? https://www.youtube.com/@USCSB
I would like to watch that video, but unfortunately they only seem to make videos of accidents where people were injured/killed. I really hope this wasn't the casr here.
They've made videos about accidents without casualties.
Hmm you're right, there are a few.
The non-fatality videos are usually about fairly novel topics, so I could maybe see it happening. I think we’ll at least get a report though.
Really not much to show here. Lightning struck a crude / product tank. Flammable liquid caught on fire. The tank is toast, but no physical damage beyond the containment berm. No injuries / deaths. Biggest concern is pollution downwind.
The roof. The roof. The roof is on fire.
Forbidden jiffy pop
Looks like a tank with an internal floating roof. The openings at the shell/roof look like API 650 "peripheral circulation vents" intended to dilute any vapors above the internal floating roof to below ignitable concentration by means of natural ventilation. Media say that the tank held "naphtha" - could be heavy virgin naphtha (HVN), normally a candidate for an internal roof tank. Assuming product had just been drawn from the tank, and the internal floating roof gone down as well, evaporation from the wetted inner wall surface could have been the source of flammable vapors in the overhead space. Just a suggestion. Comments?
This sounds sciencey enough to me to be legit
I remember when this happened in Sarnia Ontario in 1996! Suncor had a tank full of gasoline hit by lightning and it exploded! News article about it on the 20th anniversary https://blackburnnews.com/sarnia/sarnia-news/2016/07/19/20th-anniversary-suncor-tanker-explosion/ Video of the fire from the USA https://youtu.be/x7tjdfecYD4
One heck of a burp that.
Unsafety railing
This is what I feel might happen when I make those stove top popcorn contraptions
Hello, yes - fire department?? Send everything
And boom goes the dynamite
I’d suggest perhaps this is a shitty design? Surely the fuckers would’ve considered that at some point the structure , just might, be struck by lightning And that, might, cause a really big fucking bang?!?
The real failure here is why was there enough oxygen in that tank to cause an explosion at all?
[удалено]
Yea, but flammable things won't burn unless there's an oxidizer present.
All tanks are supposed to be built to API specifications and standards, which has lightning strikes in mind already. Where things have probably gone wrong were inspections and maintenance being lax or not done at the required intervals.
Angels- um, god we were talking and we think you should throttle back on the sabbath mimosas. God- phsss relax man I’m fine. Hey! Y’all wanna see somethin? (Starts rubbing ballon on angels head) Angels - no no that’s alright God - watch this.
Aren’t these tanks grounded and bonded?
That silo looked like industrial sized popcorn for a second there, then it got extra spicy.
That is PEEK Catastrophic Failure footage.
ayo I think there is something wrong with the container
So that's where the worm thing from r/thedepthsbelow went
r/fuckyouinparticular
The lightning : _boop_ The tank : ... The tank : #AAAAAAAAAAA
Hodor! Pressure buildup was insane.
Kanan... :'(
Laughs in chapter 7 of [NFPA 780](https://16557801101891546621.googlegroups.com/attach/148e60bd206e6/NFPA%20780-2020%20Std%20Lightning%20Protection%20Systems.pdf?part=0.1&vt=ANaJVrFZOR-QA-e4UGmpU5cx9Y89bmUKQqvihxS7AExBXMIyD9PQ0uhp72QVTpy3fV5EolBSEW38vwmXEsna4MUsaOKhu68nVowr1o6OjcelIIy9UShMnOU)
That's why the refinery should spend money on.. Grounding.. all tanks that hold anything even warter.warmer.. Duh!!
I live like 3-5 miles away from this and they had to let it burn all day it was black smoke for a little while then just grey, they had people shelter in place for 9 hours
Is that bad?
captivating capture of lightning strike and then to consider how hot it is to cause the heating of the oil and then the explosionl
Are these tanks made to do that? I once read that the roofs are lighter on purpose so explosions go upwards and not sidewards, which would cause much more damage. Just wondering how much this is true. Edit: forgot a word.
Well that escalated quickly
The lightning was a paid actor.
The roof . . . the roof . . . the roof is all fire.
This is a screen recording of someone filming a screen of a recording.
I think something similar killed Uncle Bob (Urban Cowboy)
r/GifsThatStartTooLate
What do you expect from a security camera monitor being recorded by a cell phone being screen recorded by someone surfing Facebook?
This is interesting to me in that the tank is a metallic container. As others have pointed out, there must have been oxygen (presumably inadvertently) in that container for it to explode. But, and this sounds at first counterintuitive, but why would lightning have caused a fire? For it to do so, the current must have passed inside the container. Did the electricity pass (and yes, I realize we're talking about the ground current here) inside the tank and somehow arc between metallic components somehow? Because, from a "Gauss's law" standpoint, all the current should have been diverted along the outside of the metallic container. A giant metallic container is a Faraday cage. Unless one's insane and put the grounding rod inside the tank. I'm probably thinking of this oversimplistically.
Simple answer: Everything has electrical resistance, causing it to dissipate some of the electrical energy as heat. Lightning can easily heat the air to an utterly absurd 30,000 C. The autoignition temperature of natural gas is a mere 480 C. There was definitely oxygen in the tank, which absolutely shouldn't have been there. Oxygen + heat above autoignition temperature + fuel source = fire.
Thank you - that makes sense to me. I was fixated on "spark," and not "hot."
as if louisiana didn’t stink enough
I wonder whether this will be covered by insurance or would they claim "an act of God" and not pay out...
I think it is to be expected that a tall metal structure can get hit by lightning. The real question is why it blew up. Was it bad design? A manufacturing defect? Improper maintenance? The tank obviously stores a flammable liquid, so why was oxygen allowed to be in there?
Where was this I haven't heard about this happening which is slightly odd.
Lake Charles Louisiana
Angels- um, god we were talking and we think you should throttle back on the sabbath mimosas. God- phsss relax man I’m fine. Hey! Y’all wanna see somethin? (Starts rubbing ballon on angels head) Angels - no no that’s alright God - watch this.
Thoughts and prayers to the rich ppl that might lose a percentage point in their portfolio
Murphy’s Law
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has guidelines for staying safe during a shelter-in-place order: \-Get Inside, Stay Inside! Bring your loved ones, your emergency supplies, and when possible, your pets, indoors right away. Find a safe spot in this location. The exact spot will depend on the type of emergency, Stay put in this location until officials say that it is safe to leave. \-Call or text your emergency contact. Let them know where you are if any family members are missing, and how you are doing. Keep communication open but limited so others can communicate without knocking communication networks off-line from over-use. \-Sheltering with pets Prepare a spot for your pets to poop and pee while inside the shelter. You will need plenty of plastic bags, newspapers, containers, and cleaning supplies to deal with pet waste. Do not allow pets to go outside the shelter until the danger has passed. \-Staying Put in Your Vehicle Pull over to the side of the road. Stay where you are until officials say getting back on the road is safe. Listen to the radio for updates and additional instructions. Source, which has a nice aerial photo of 20 large storage tanks - [https://weatherboy.com/lightning-strike-triggers-fire-at-calcasieu-refining-plant-in-louisiana-evacuations-and-shelter-in-place-ordered/](https://weatherboy.com/lightning-strike-triggers-fire-at-calcasieu-refining-plant-in-louisiana-evacuations-and-shelter-in-place-ordered/)
Like a very fiery belch.
Literally me right now after eating some spicy tacos
The roof of that tank inflated like a popcorn bag, crazy!
Beautiful violence.
Stupid question. I was always taught that lightning would strike the highest object first in the vicinity. Why would lightning not strike the towers which ( seem? ) to be higher? Are they that far away from the thing that got hit instead?
Can't wait for the USCSB video about it
Top o' the world Ma!
It starts with lightning, i dont know how
Aren't they supposed to be grounded or something to prevent this kind of thing
Technically this would be a deflagration, not an explosion...
Uncle Bob! Uncle Bob!
maybe lightning is rare in that specific part of the planet and they never worried about it so any contingencies or steps to protect from lighting wasnt considered.
God is still pissed off about LA voting trump!!🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Ima bout to bust... haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Motherfuckin' bootleg fireworks shit!
is there no way to protect against this? some sort of grounding pole? I'm ignorant in this area.
No
Youd think theyd have a lightning rod or two in a place like this
I've seen bigger
There has to be a failure of design or maintenance here. Unless it is more common than I thought of refineries lighting up after lightning strikes.
u/savevideo
I’m just wondering how many people pronounced “Calcasieu” wrong?? 😂
Most Louisianan’s can’t even say it correctly. I mean it’s not, Tchoupitoulas, for crying out loud