Arkema Group, one of the world’s largest chemical companies, warned us that their chemical plant, 30 miles from Houston, was likely to explode yesterday morning because the plant has been without electricity since Sunday. As a precaution, a one and half mile area around the plant was evacuated.

Early this morning the first in what is expected to be several explosions sent plumes of smoke in the air.

Brock Long, administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Thursday that evacuations are based on “plume modeling,” which is used to predict the geographic extent of a hazard area from an explosion.

“By all means, the plume is incredibly dangerous,” Long said of what’s occurring in Crosby.

However ….

Company officials said the smoke is believed to be a “nontoxic irritant,” authorities added.

This morning, the CEO of the company responded on TV — “Toxicity is a relative thing.”

No, it is not. Either it’s gonna hurt you or it ain’t. And whether it hurts you or kills you ain’t even relative — it’s one of the other.

Remember when Texas decided it was not going to monitor chemical plants any longer because that was too heavy a burden on free enterprise? So this right here is your Dan Patrick Memorial Toxic Plume.

Originally published at JuanitaJean.com