Massive Fire At Texas Chemical Plant; Category 3 Hurricane Irma Intensifying, May Hit U.S.; Houston Now Soaking In A Chemical Stew Filled With E.Coli
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: A dangerous new Category 3 hurricane in the meantime gaining strength at this hour. Is it headed for the U.S. and the Gulf Coast? Plus an OutFront exclusive report this hour, the first test results just in of Harvey's toxic floodwaters. These results are shocking. You'll see them only here. Plus, another long-time confidant to the President, one of the people closest to Trump for decades and in the White House out tonight. Is it because of John Kelly? Let's go OutFront. Good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OutFront tonight, the breaking news you see on your screen, a raging inferno. Moments ago, fire and thick black smoke breaking out at this chemical plant. It is in Crosby, Texas. Crosby is in hard hit Harris County. It is, of course, the same county as Houston. It's about 25 miles east of downtown. That same plant was hit by a fire and explosion on Thursday after floods knocked out power supplies that are needed to run the refrigerators that actually can cool some of these volatile chemicals. Plant official stress the smoke was not a serious danger to people yesterday, but locals were evacuated for one-and-a-half miles around the plant. The fire that you're looking at right now, as you see that black smoke, it is much bigger, it is much more intense. And we're going to have much more on that in a moment. We are also following the breaking news on a new major hurricane tonight, hurricane Irma, a major Category 3 storm right now and it's going to get a lot bigger. It's intensifying as it moves across the Atlantic. The satellite picture that you see below me captures both Irma and what remains of Harvey over Tennessee earlier today. So you can see them on either side of your screen. Forecaster say Irma has the potential to hit the mainland as a major storm, possibly bigger and stronger than Harvey. Right now, computer model show Irma could make land fall in Florida or further up the East Coast or even crossing the gulf and plowing into the disaster left behind by Harvey. Many storm paths, all of them, terrifying. We'll begin OutFront tonight with Miguel Marquez in Belmont, Texas. He joins me on the phone, obviously, still issues with communications with the catastrophe there. Miguel, the fire growing in intensity over the past hour in Crosby. What do we know about this plant and the explosion? I mean, this smoke is -- this isn't just regular chimney smoke, this is black, thick noxious looking stuff.</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yeah. There is 500,000 pounds of organic peroxide in this Arkema plant, Northeast of Houston, in Crosby, Texas. As you noted yesterday, there was an issue where it did (ph) first into part of the plant first burst into flames. 15 deputies of Harris County were in the plant at the time. They had to be treated at the hospital. It causes an irritant. They were not badly injured, but the plant, Arkema, out of an abundance of caution has instituted a one-and-a-half mile exclusion zone around the plant. This is a plant that suffered six feet of water was in that plant. It's not the water that has set off these chemicals. It's the lack of refrigeration as you noted that the power went out in the plant and this is something that authorities at the plant and officials at the plant thought would happen in the days ahead. They knew that this was a very likely event that would happen, and it is happening. The Chemical Safety Board has started an investigation into the first explosion, and this one is being watched very carefully as well. It is not clear how long this will burn or if it will spread to other areas of the plant. But this is why they have this explosion zone now, this one-and-a-half mile zone around the plant, in the event that it is a catastrophic situation. This is the petrochemical oil gas, petrochemical area of the country. There are many, many of these plants in this storm and the issues raised not only with the flooding, but with the power and everything that comes with these storms is being looked at by many, many agencies right now that the Environmental Protection Agency watching very carefully what's happening here. But this, unfortunately, is oftentimes what happens in this sort of major disasters where you have water rising over many, many days and it can be a slow, sort of unfolding disaster. This may be just one of many days that we see of this. Erin?</s>BURNETT: All right. Miguel, thank you very much. As we get more, we'll go back to Miguel here on the scene. I want to go now to one of the top officials in Harris County, of course, that includes Houston, it includes the fire at the plant you're looking at right now in Crosby. Sheriff Ed Gonzales is back with me. And, Sheriff, let me just get to the breaking news here. Obviously, we see that black, thick smoke coming from that chemical plant in Crosby. There was a fire yesterday. This one, of course, as we're reporting is much bigger than that one. You have crews there. What is causing this? Do you know? What exploded?</s>SHERIFF ED GONZALEZ, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS: Well, we have nine containers there, boxed containers there that contain this organic peroxide and we knew that as the temperature continued to change and drop that eventually we would have these ruptures. We experienced the first one yesterday. I believe this is now the second one and we frankly anticipate a few more, at least seven, because there are still seven box containers left. And as you mentioned, that's why we have that exclusion zone for a mile and a half now.</s>BURNETT: So seven more. I mean, look, the smoke does look -- look, it's foul. It's black. It's noxious. I know 15 of your deputies, sheriff deputies were taken to the hospital for inhaling the irritants after that first explosion that you mentioned. How are they tonight? How are these officers doing?</s>GONZALEZ: They were fine. Fortunately, thank God, they were released later that morning. And, so, we're happy that they're doing well. And, you know, we're still continuing to monitor the situation. We're working very closely with our fire professionals that are near the scene and assessing everything and we have all the top experts trying to determine, you know, what our next steps if any that we need to do. We were taking a defensive posture and just allowing these containers to burn. We thought that that would be the best option contain at there on scene and that's what we're proceeding to do at the moment. Again, ours is more of a public safety police function that we have --</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>GONZALEZ: -- and just regarding the general area and the fire professionals were handling the fire and the chemical issue.</s>BURNETT: So when you talk about public safety, though, obviously these are chemicals. These are massive chemical plant that the fire is black and thick and it looks noxious. And Arkema executive from that plant was actually asked about that smoke and whether the smoke is toxic. The answer was certainly not one to be proud of from a public relations perspective. I just want to play it, though, to get your response to the facts, the allegations here. Let me play it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nontoxic or can you not say that?</s>RICHARD RENARD, ARKEMA EXECUTIVE: It's noxious. I mean, toxicity is --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. So you're not able to say that it's none to any of this is nontoxic?</s>RENARD: I mean, toxicity is a --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. So you can't say it? Are you going say they're nontoxic or not? Yes or no? I think it's a pretty important --</s>RENARD: I mean the smoke is noxious. Its toxicity is, you know, it's a relative thing.</s>BURNETT: Using a scientific distinction here, but a distinction without a difference to the public, certainly Sheriff, that you are trying to protect. Are you concerned about what's going into the air right now?</s>GONZALEZ: Well, I mean, there's always a concern. And the images obviously are very troubling. So, you know, that is a concern. But I feel confident in talking to the fire marshal, our Harris County Fire Marshal Office, since Chief Bolton is there. Trust him a great deal. He's very experienced. And they've been in communications and deliberations with the Arkema from the beginning on this when they alerted us about the situation. And so I have to go with what our fire professionals are saying and we're working closely with them. So I believe if anything changes we will definitely adjust our plans. But not sure, you know, about what Arkema is mentioning up. I can't really speak to their statement.</s>BURNETT: No, I understand. Sheriff, though, as our reporter pointed out, you're standing at the epicenter of the petrochemical capital of the United States, right? You've got refineries. You've got chemical plants. You've got more</s>GONZALEZ: You're correct. We have a lot of critical infrastructure here. We cover over 1,700 square miles. We're the third largest county in the country, so our geography is massive. But beyond this, we have not heard of any other facility that's compromised in any way or any other issues at this point. We have our industrial team with the Harris County Sheriff's Office and other administrative partners and regulators that we communicate with, so we do not have other concerns at this time.</s>BURNETT: All right. Sheriff Gonzalez, I appreciate your taking the time talking to me again. Thank you, sir.</s>GONZALEZ: Thank you, Erin.</s>BURNETT: All right. And joining me on the phone now is Sam Mannan. He's a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M. He did a study on all the hazardous materials in the Houston area as we are talking about the petrochemical capital of the U.S. now so much of it underwater, under flooded water. Sam, can you answer, I guess, the crucial question here of how hazardous is this explosion? When you see this black smoke, how concerned are you?</s>SAM MANNAN, PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY (via telephone): So I am concerned, but I don't think it is something of the order of magnitude of the west explosion of the scenario, but it is a matter of concern. And the thick black smoke that you see coming out, it primarily contains the product of combustion, which is carbon dioxide and water. But depending on how incomplete the combustion is and the darkness or the blackness of the smoke indicates that there is some incomplete combustion. So because of that, some of the chemicals are getting in the air as it is. And my hope is -- and I have to assume that they're getting dispersed properly. But if people get exposed to it over longer periods of time, there can be health effects. Whether or not they're going to be reversible or irreversible health effects, we'd have to dig deeper into it.</s>BURNETT: Well, let me stand up what I think is really terrifying for people to hear. When you look at this, you think more broadly about other chemicals, perhaps, leaking into the water around Houston. But in this case, right, they've evacuated people within a mile and a half of the chemical plant. That's even as they said don't worry about it. They did evacuate. You are saying this is going into the air, and it sounds like we just don't know how dangerous it is. Should they have evacuated a broader area or are you confident one-and-a-half miles is enough?</s>MANNAN: So only time will tell if that's the right decision. But, again, I have to assume that one-and-a-half mile radius was picked on the basis of some calculations that took into account explosion over pressures or shockwaves, as well as the concentrations they might see at that distance after dispersion has taken place. Clearly, there is always an uncertainty with those calculations, but usually people make those determinations on a conservative basis, so you're always on the safe side. And I'm hoping that is the case in this case.</s>BURNETT: All right.</s>MANNAN: But it is not something that we should just treat as something we should not be concerned about. Clearly, we should be concerned about it and there are seven other tanks that are there with significant quantities of the material. They will also burn sooner or later. And right now, the plant or anyone else doesn't have any other options but to let it burn and hopefully the consequences will be limited to this type of explosion.</s>BURNETT: OK, all right. Thank you very much, Sam. I appreciate your time and seven more of those explosions to come at least just there. And this comes as another hurricane is intensifying over the Atlantic. And right now it's a Category 3, but it's still very far away. It coalesced into a storm incredibly early, it's incredibly strong and it could pose a major threat to the United States. Allison Chinchar is OutFront live in our weather center. And, Allison, we're talking about Irma here. What do you know about it?</s>ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We know right now it's a very strong hurricane as it stands. But it's also in the middle of nowhere. So the question really is where does it go from here? Right now you're taking a look at Irma. Again, it's not really around land of any kind. Still well away from the Leeward Island and even the Caribbean, but that is going to be direction it ends up going. Here's to look at the current statistics. Right now a Category 3 storm, winds around 120 miles per hour, moving west at about 13 miles per hour. But as we take a look at the track, you'll notice that it's going to start to take a more southerly turn pretty soon. Now, the reason it does that is it's going to have a height. It's going to block it pushing it south. But in doing so, it's actually going to end up getting into slightly warmer water. This may actually allow the storm to strengthen even more, perhaps into a Category 4 storm, if not potentially stronger. So that's really the short term. The ultimate question is what does it do in the long term. So let's take a look at what some of the models are kind of spitting out for this, per se. We take the top two models that we have. As it treks across the Atlantic, coming in towards the Caribbean, both models really have pretty consistent tracks. It's once we get towards the Bahamas, that's when they split. This red color here, this is the American model. It keeps it further away from the U.S., hugging a little bit closer towards Bermuda. But the European model actually treks further west, pushing perhaps some showers and thunderstorms from the storm towards Florida and, Erin, even maybe skirting along the North Carolina and South Carolina coast. The problem is now you're talking 7 to 10, even 12 days out. So it's little far to know which one of these scenarios will pan out, but that's why we will keep a close eye on it in the coming days.</s>BURNETT: All right, Allison. Of course everyone's eyes are on this after the catastrophe in Houston on the Gulf Coast. Thank you so much. And next, on top of that massive fire at the chemical plant in Texas we're covering that and our exclusive test is in. We went out, tested the toxic floodwaters. So what is in them? Well, the OutFront test results literally came in about 15 minutes ago. You are going to see them just after this in their entirety. Brace yourself. Plus, a man returns to his home for the first time. Will he ever be able to live there again? And a letter about Jim Comey may prove to be big trouble for the President. What's in it?