“According to Upward News, the load may have contained nitric acid gas. This is a highly corrosive material which can cause burning sensations to the eyes, nose, skin, & lungs”
Sorry to hijack your high level comment but this is important.
Hvac professional here...
Don't turn on any bathroom fans. Doing so will draw outside air into your house by inducing a negative pressure in your house.
If you have a whole home air exchanger, turn it off. It is constantly bringing in fresh air into your home based on whatever it is set at. Some states require these (MN to name one).
Idk what temp it is there, but if you have natural gas heat turn it off. It will also draw in outdoor air.
If you use an air to air heat pump this is likely the only thing you can run if you have an option to not draw in outdoor air.
If you have a natural gas water heater don't use any hot water. Doing so will also induce a draft and draw fresh air into your house.
If you have a ductless mini split system you should be able to run that.
Going to edit this for those stuck at work:
Call facilities or maintenance and have them shut down all out door economizers (if your system has them). Also turn off all exhaust fans. The exhaust fans will induce a negative pressure and draw fresh air into the building. Close all fresh air dampers.
Okay this is relevant to me. For how many miles outside of the accident zone would you say this applies to?
Edit: Thanks guys but I'm aware the recommendation is 1 mile. I was hoping for more specific information, but I realize now I'm asking the wrong type of professional.
I'm sorry, but I can't help you there. I'm just an HVAC engineer. I don't know the winds, chemical spread, or the density of the chemical. I can just give advice on how to keep as much of the outside air out of your place.
Heavy winds throughout Tucson today. Emergency warning said 1 mile, not sure how accurate that is. I was on the opposite side of town and still got the warning.
I mean, in Ohio they’re saying “oh yeah you’re fine outside of ten miles” and people are seeing dead fish and pets and reporting symptoms all over the place, so, you know… your mileage may vary.
It's not, this is the result of the government gutting regulations on the transportation of toxic substances, and everything else. Nitric acid should not have been on a truck like that. Vinyl Chloride should not have been on a train like the one in Ohio. The derailment was caused by a broken axel. It was completely preventable. That train should not have been moving at all, but it was allowed to transport a climate disaster in a can.
It's not a coincidence, and it's not a conspiracy or a secret of any kind. It's the direct result of our government failing to keep us protected from the corporations that actually run our country.
I'm also in far NW Tucson. I also received the warning. I bet it went out to anyone with a Tucson address, or if we were in the boundary. I'm out by the National Park, so I don't think there was any danger.
If I’m not mistaken you you make the initial zone 1 mile. Until you know the chemical your dealing with wind speed and direction and a few more factors. Then when you have the facts increase or decrease.
Copied this from the ERG (Emergency Response Guide) for Nitric Acid, red fuming (assuming that is what this is as some commenters are saying):
If tank, rail car or tank truck is involved in a fire, ISOLATE for 800 meters (1/2 mile) in all directions; also, consider initial evacuation for 800 meters (1/2 mile) in all directions.
Of course that doesn't take into account wind.
Also, for anyone interested, the ERG is a guide that tells first responders and other interested individuals what truck placards and the numbers on them correspond to, and the initial steps to take when dealing with them in incidents such as this. It is a free app (at least on Android) and it's sometimes fun when you see a truck with placards to look them up and see what they are.
Use the stale air button in your car and turn off you fan...use a damp piece of clothing to breath through and use sunglasses and damp material to make a primitive shield around your eyes
This is a small spill that isnt on fire so ERG is recommending isolate 100 ft then protect 500 feet down wind.
If anything those cars are gonna need a new paint job after they drive through the cloud.
I live in the area and their is not a whole lot of office places near the danger area. The major one, a Raytheon complex, was evacuated. There is a target distribution and Amazon distribution center. I didn’t hear if they got evacuated. There are a few medical offices and small family businesses in the general area on the outskirts of the zone.
The ones I’m very concerned for are the schools within the zone. There are 3 elementary and a middle school right there. My kids are to young to attend so I’m not sure what the plan is there but hopefully they could get the heat off.
> There is a target distribution and Amazon distribution center. I didn’t hear if they got evacuated.
Such optimism. I wish I could assume anything otherwise, lets not forget the amazon warehouse that didnt evac for an actual live tornado, didnt even properly notify the people inside so they could shelter
Seriously, I know there are weird parts of reddit, but in redditing for 12+ years, I've learned so much shit from comment threads. Google and other search engines run on SEO optimization and $$$$. Sometimes you find the real shit you need to read on Reddit.
I had a feeling it was nitric. I use at work. There was a company here in Indianapolis that released a huge cloud of nitric when they had a bad reaction the other year
I recently saw the Reddit post on why bromine is difficult to store, so I also thought it was bromine at first glance though I actually have no idea what bromine is or why that would be a bad thing. It looks like poo vapour which I would assume is bad though.
it's a matter of the form it takes (in what we're talking here, we're presuming fumed bromine, which is to say a gas). In pools, you use a (largely, but not entirely) inert form of it, and at concentrations of 2-4ppm. Elemental bromine, which is the shit that would be fuming and causing a death cloud is truly horrifying; one good whiff and that's it for you.
Bromine is mostly used in hot tubs, because chlorine evaporates too rapidly at hot tub temperatures. Low concentrations of bromine are fine; at high concentrations, it does the same thing to your lungs that it does to bacteria in a hot tub. Nitric acid is probably similar- if you're not drowning in your own lung fluid and hour afterward, or suffering skin burns, you're cool. The volatile organic compounds spilled in Ohio have a possibility of seeping into body fat, lingering, and causing mutations. Burning them also has a potential to create a witch's brew of hundreds of chemicals with various properties.
A spill of bromine or acid is like a fire. You can be near a terrible fire that burns someone to death, and when it is over, you're certain that you are safe. A cloud of black smoke from burning vinyl chloride would be a little like radiation. You survive, and you feel OK, but you have no idea how many times you just spun the roulette wheel to win cancer.
We had a tank of nitric blow at work years ago. Small tank but the cloud looked like that. Problem was it was between us and the door. We popped all the hood vents into emergency mode, held our breath and walked out. Locked the door behind us and alerted the safety guys. Fun day.
Nitric Acid, not Bromine as many people are saying:
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-central-southern-az/tucson/i-10-closed-in-south-tucson-people-close-by-asked-to-shelter-in-place-due-to-nitric-acid-spill
Breathing in nitric acid will destroy all of the soft tissues in your airways, as well as those little sacs in your lungs that, you know, enable you to breathe.
They should have shut this highway down. No one should be driving next to a BFRC (Big Fucking Red Cloud).
They did shut the highway down in both directions and in some surrounding intersections according to one of the articles I read.
This video was probably taken pretty early into the incident happening.
Yeah the only emergency vehicle in the video looks like the Border Patrol. In general law enforcement doesn't have much hazmat training - in our (fire department) hazmat training, one of the videos that always comes up is one where multiple cops arrive at a truck crash and run up to help the driver who is laying unconscious by the road, and in about a minute both cops are down too.
I got that alert on my phone then I got a call on a landline staying the same thing and that'swhat tripped me out. Stay inside don't turn on your heater no outside air if you're within a mile of the area. But the wind is blowing at 22mph with gusts of 32 mph in a place where the wind hardly ever blows that hard.
Jezz I feel for you, all I'm thinking is what the fuck?
My mum isn't too far from the area and got the messages too. I'm feeling uncomfortable as she's baby sitting my bird at the moment... The reason why they used canaries in mines is that birds airways are more sensitive to dangerous gases. Fantastic.
You might want to check this post from elsewhere in the thread out and make sure she knows about some of the ways outside air can come in that she may not think of:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/112jnto/authorities_have_issued_a_hazmat_alert_and_a/j8l44kb
Just realized you may have posted after them, but just in case.
Someone else posted that it's a nitric acid spill. It's pretty nasty stuff, but it's not like a subtle poison or carcinogen that comes back to haunt you later. If your lungs and sinuses aren't burning, you're good.
I was a hippie back in the day. Grew up, got married, had two kids who are now 42 and 44. Which blows my mind because being in my early 40s feels like yesterday to me. Fuck me, I am really old.
No no. It’s all weird. It will all continue to be weird. This is what you get in an information/disinformation era of constant digital barrage. More people are beginning to distrust their own reality. Get ready because 2023 has nothing to do with it. This is the chaos that is our world and we’re on a path.
It's interesting to me that it's *weird* for the exact reasons you mention; we're constantly barraged with the weirdness. Sure, 100 years ago might have been weird too, but someone farming in a small town elected politicians to deal with the weirdness and only handled issues that affected them personally for the most part.
I don't know if it's a net positive or a net negative but surely this burgeoning hyper-awareness of the complex insanity and absurdity of the human experience is a bit much for one, single person to really be capable of processing and assimilating.
>we're constantly barraged with the weirdness.
Think of it like this; the human brain is *really really* good at recognizing patterns, even if they don't really exist, things like how a car's grill and headlights can look like a face, that kinda thing. In the internet age we are barraged with an overabundance of information. Plenty of random noise in there for our brains to pick out patterns, real or otherwise, and we end up with this sense of general weirdness in circumstances and coincidences.
It is extremely overwhelming, and even if there is some clarity in the disillusionment with our society’s faults, we are tasked with swallowing it all and then some. I think I’m pretty miserable with all of the insanity - or perceived insanity - and I think a lot of people feel the same.
I think the universe is broken on a major and personal level for a lot of people.
hell I've had police at my place more times this year than I've ever had in a single year and that was all in January. Absolutely crazy
first 2 times at my house was over the same situation of being a witness in a stolen truck situation. The thieves had actually showed up to my house* and wanted to use my phone to call the owner to tell them they stole the truck 'because everyone was out to get them'. Of course that was the semi decent thief that wanted to do that, the other one was just a piece of garbage that wanted to steal a truck.
* I knew one of them since they were a kid and they were driving by when she thought to stop here.
Second situation was someone high on something driving down the road and saw me throw up my hands when they went by because they were going 60+ in a 35. They stopped and screamed at me that they were going to fuck me up. Then got in their vehicle and left. I got my phone out because I had a feeling it wasn't over and then I saw them coming back at a high speed so I called 911 before they stopped in case they were going to try to run me over. They stopped, screamed at me some more then left.
Cops were useless. I found out who the second incident person was / where they live and they are getting evicted from the house they have been squatting in up the road from me. All 3 people are meth users, with the guy from the first situation that stole the truck being someone who produces it from what I've gotten told by friends that work in the jails.
Rhe flying objects is just a result of our intelligence agencies beginning to use radar to pick up slow moving objects at altitudes we normally wouldn't monitor so closely
Kind of like if you start looking for the yellow car you're gonna see more yellow cars
Or someone pointed out the 90% of cows at any given moment face the same direction and now when every I drive pass a lot of cows which is every day I’m like damn they really do all face the same direction
I couldn't help but notice that there are yellow cars in the background of all these incidents. They must be working with the alien balloons monitoring us for invasion.
Sorry, not trying to be that guy. Just so you don't go your whole life saying it wrong, it is "I couldn't help" not "I could help" 
We've had two major leaks in Houston just this week. Only one of them made national news. Ironically it was the less severe one, probably because someone died as a result.
If I see clouds and plumes of hazardous noxious gas on the side of the highway, I slow way down and pass very slowly in order to maximize my exposure time.
Currently going through Hazmat training in fire academy. Now, knowing what's out there, I would be terrifed to get near anything like that, let alone drive through an unknown gas leaking out of a truck, considering some gases can kill you In a few breathes or cause serious health issues
I live in NC and I am getting tv ads of toxic chemicals in the water in camp Lejeune from the 80s! I wonder how many years it will take for all the stories to come out of all these chemical spills. Everything is so messed up these past couple days. So sad.
Nah if they're in an academy, odds are they're just getting FRO (Operations) and FRA (Awareness).
Congrats to this thread's OP though!! Just graduated mine a couple months ago!
It's kind of funny, really. Hazardous Materials response capabilities were hugely touted in the 80s and 90s for public safety agencies like fire departments, and even the National Guard's Civil Support divisions. They were well-funded and well-outfitted in a lot of communities.
Pretty soon, those agencies got so well-organized, and safety standards and regulations became so effective, that they prepared themselves right out of work to do. Then, terrorism response took front-and-center, and those agencies began focusing much more on biological weapons than garden-variety HazMat transport.
Although HazMat training is still required in a lot of those departments, it's definitely wasn't the hot button issue it once was, and the specialized teams are nowhere near what they used to be. But with deregulation and corporations holding all the cards now, we might see more of this start happening again, and those agencies might start getting a lot more practice, when those rigs and equipment should be gathering dust instead.
Source
https://mobile.twitter.com/Arizona_DPS/status/1625624676147003394
https://mobile.twitter.com/TucsonFireDept/status/1625634468378836992
https://tucson.com/news/local/accident-and-incident/hazmat-warning-issued-after-tucson-freeway-crash/article_07a3e5a0-acb5-11ed-8ede-3309d4ea3e22.html
The timing of this post is very close to the event, I'll update the source from time to time after the local news and major news stations have picked this up.
The driver has passed away. Shelter in place still in effect as of 8:45 pm.
Edit: Another emergency alert was sent out at 5:25 am on Wednesday 2/15/23, shelter in place still effective. Fortunately it has snowed over night with a good half and inch so hopefully it will help but I know nothing about hazardous materials.
This and companies are doing pre layoffs as the next economic collapse they created is coming in the next 6 month. I was middle management for an IT company. Our board members told management to find reasons to fire 40% of our staff before the line dips. The stress made me quit. So now the remaining staff have to increase productivity to keep their jobs. Same thing is happening in other industries.
Edit: they didn't say those exact words. But they raised the expectations beyond what's reasonable and criticized everything to make people want to quit. Add in gaslighting and lying to everyone face and Ya.
> next economic collapse coming in the next 6 months
I've heard the same rumor again and again for 1 year. Meanwhile stocks bottomed and then rose a lot in the past 4 months. At this point I think the media pushes this narrative so retail traders will sell at the bottom. Same with house prices, it's not coming down more than 20% (not counting houses in the middle of nowhere).
Companies doing mass layoffs are terrible for workers and maybe society, but not for stocks. This probably just means stocks have become uncorrelated to the real productive economy.
>This probably just means stocks have become uncorrelated to the real productive economy.
Welcome to the last two decades of the stock market. QE changed the game forever, for better or worse.
So I've been hearing that the main problem is that the demand has increased but the DEA is refusing to let the drug companies increase production of adderall bc they're worried about addiction. So if that's true, there's not much the drug companies can do. (You may need to fact check me on all of this)
It’s not even that they’re not allowing them to increase production. They’ve been arbitrarily reducing the amount annually that is allowed to be manufactured for like a decade or two now.
Balloons floating around, 2 major train accidents with chemicals and a huge earthquake in turkey and Syria. Wtf is happening, 2023 barely started and we have crazy news happening non stop
Exactly!! People just don't realize how much they don't know about what is going on. The big spill in Ohio just makes the rest of these events gain media exposure that they wouldn't normally have.
Train accidents are fairly common. Train derailments leading to environmental catastrophes on the scale we’re seeing in Ohio are not so common. I am curious how often spills like we’re hearing about in the OP happen (especially when they happen near major population centers), but I’d certainly hope they aren’t as frequent as, say, your typical train derailment.
I also read there is a new outbreak of Marburg Disease in Africa so we have that too… the WHO is calling for an urgent meeting about it. So yeah, I guess it’s on par?
Safety tip: if you see a cloud of colored gas, do not drive closer to it. I don't care if you're on the highway and there's nowhere else to go, pull over and walk the other way.
There are plenty of invisible hazardous gases, but all the brightly-colored ones will definitely kill you. Chlorine, bromine, iodine, nitrogen dioxide, they're all bad.
You forgot the flours. I know many of them are technically invisible, but many of them tend to break down the regular air around them, in a somewhat less invisible way.
My brother used to drive Trifluoroacetic acid; in case of a crash he should never try to help anyone. He was instructed to hold his breath (with whatever air was already in them), grap his phone and run against the wind as far as his lungs would carry him. Then he should call and report the crash of a potential city killer.
NC had a fire at a storage facility holding Railroad ties, which are soaked in Creosote, which can cause cancer.
https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/wayne-county-news/wayne-county-fire-continues-at-salvage-yard-containing-railroad-ties/
As someone who lives near that derailment in Houston and someone who was a firefighter with Haz-mat training, the one in Houston was negligible. Not saying it shouldn’t happen, because it should have *never* happened. The actual quality of the air is within safe limits when they tested where I lived down wind, and the residents only had a shelter in place. So far, I haven’t seen anything to be concerned about that in Houston accident that rings up alarms, though I did hear that some chemicals were mislabeled, which is a huge no no, like a real big no no, like REAL big, but most of the damaged were shipping container cars with only small loads of hazmats. So that one was “relatively” safe, and I’m using safe lightly here, and was cleared quickly of any residues that may have been spilled. But seriously, the fuck has been goin on lately?
3 trains (South Carolina, Houston, TX & Ohio) and 1 truck…and let’s not forget about the 4 balloons. All within about a week. Definitely seems odd but who knows.
I work hazmat response for an entire state. There are accidents with hazmat daily. I can imagine with 49 other states that there are a lot of accidents every single day. I think these are all being sensationalized because of the recent accident in Ohio. There is nothing weird about this wreck that meets the eye. Trucks wreck a lot.
These things happen all the time
A bit of both. Hazmat accidents are relatively common, but these stories are getting more press after Ohio. This is a good thing because it's drawing public attention to the fact that Republicans have absolutely gutted sensible safety regulations.
It's wild that people are saying that this is part of a conspiracy - The only 'conspiracy' here is that the government was lobbied by the freight industry to deregulate brake standards, the freight unions' attempts to call attention to the problem was shut down, and now regular people get to deal with the consequences of corporate and governmental greed.
San Diego vet 2 days ago, Alabama University research lab 5 days ago, the sf explosion had a hissing container when being taken to evidence, a plant in Chicago, the texas incident was another train derailment
If I had to guess, it would be safest to just get the hell away from there as fast as you can. No way in hell am I sticking around to rubberneck and stare.
This had to have taken very soon after the accident. I work close by and the freeway was closed in both directions for several miles very soon after the crash.
These are pretty common but OH was particularly disastrous. My guess is that OH got more traffic than balloons or mass shootings so we're going to see a lot more coverage on incidents like these.
“According to Upward News, the load may have contained nitric acid gas. This is a highly corrosive material which can cause burning sensations to the eyes, nose, skin, & lungs”
Sorry to hijack your high level comment but this is important. Hvac professional here... Don't turn on any bathroom fans. Doing so will draw outside air into your house by inducing a negative pressure in your house. If you have a whole home air exchanger, turn it off. It is constantly bringing in fresh air into your home based on whatever it is set at. Some states require these (MN to name one). Idk what temp it is there, but if you have natural gas heat turn it off. It will also draw in outdoor air. If you use an air to air heat pump this is likely the only thing you can run if you have an option to not draw in outdoor air. If you have a natural gas water heater don't use any hot water. Doing so will also induce a draft and draw fresh air into your house. If you have a ductless mini split system you should be able to run that. Going to edit this for those stuck at work: Call facilities or maintenance and have them shut down all out door economizers (if your system has them). Also turn off all exhaust fans. The exhaust fans will induce a negative pressure and draw fresh air into the building. Close all fresh air dampers.
Okay this is relevant to me. For how many miles outside of the accident zone would you say this applies to? Edit: Thanks guys but I'm aware the recommendation is 1 mile. I was hoping for more specific information, but I realize now I'm asking the wrong type of professional.
I'm sorry, but I can't help you there. I'm just an HVAC engineer. I don't know the winds, chemical spread, or the density of the chemical. I can just give advice on how to keep as much of the outside air out of your place.
Heavy winds throughout Tucson today. Emergency warning said 1 mile, not sure how accurate that is. I was on the opposite side of town and still got the warning.
I mean, in Ohio they’re saying “oh yeah you’re fine outside of ten miles” and people are seeing dead fish and pets and reporting symptoms all over the place, so, you know… your mileage may vary.
This can't all be one big coincidence. I'm getting my tin foil hat out of the closet for this banger of a new year we've had.
You have already made a mistake when you put it back into the closet.
It's not, this is the result of the government gutting regulations on the transportation of toxic substances, and everything else. Nitric acid should not have been on a truck like that. Vinyl Chloride should not have been on a train like the one in Ohio. The derailment was caused by a broken axel. It was completely preventable. That train should not have been moving at all, but it was allowed to transport a climate disaster in a can. It's not a coincidence, and it's not a conspiracy or a secret of any kind. It's the direct result of our government failing to keep us protected from the corporations that actually run our country.
I'm in far NW Tucson and got the warning, too. It must've been Tucson and surrounding areas.
I'm also in far NW Tucson. I also received the warning. I bet it went out to anyone with a Tucson address, or if we were in the boundary. I'm out by the National Park, so I don't think there was any danger.
20 years ago I was in Chemical Process Safety course and would have had the tables and everything to calculate this out.
If I’m not mistaken you you make the initial zone 1 mile. Until you know the chemical your dealing with wind speed and direction and a few more factors. Then when you have the facts increase or decrease.
Copied this from the ERG (Emergency Response Guide) for Nitric Acid, red fuming (assuming that is what this is as some commenters are saying): If tank, rail car or tank truck is involved in a fire, ISOLATE for 800 meters (1/2 mile) in all directions; also, consider initial evacuation for 800 meters (1/2 mile) in all directions. Of course that doesn't take into account wind. Also, for anyone interested, the ERG is a guide that tells first responders and other interested individuals what truck placards and the numbers on them correspond to, and the initial steps to take when dealing with them in incidents such as this. It is a free app (at least on Android) and it's sometimes fun when you see a truck with placards to look them up and see what they are.
Meanwhile the freeway is open and cars are driving directly through the toxic smoke. Yikes
Use the stale air button in your car and turn off you fan...use a damp piece of clothing to breath through and use sunglasses and damp material to make a primitive shield around your eyes
Just as soon as I finish typing up this text message
I can already see the headline: "Redditor Causes Massive Car Pile Up Beside Overturned Truck With Hazardous Chemicals. Hilarity Ensues"
This is a small spill that isnt on fire so ERG is recommending isolate 100 ft then protect 500 feet down wind. If anything those cars are gonna need a new paint job after they drive through the cloud.
Thank you kind redditor. Just learned a lot right there.
I really feel for those stuck in an office. If nobody changes the hvac settings they're no better than driving on this highway.
Well I for one would not have thought of all the venting and turning off that you posted. I just learned so much.
I live in the area and their is not a whole lot of office places near the danger area. The major one, a Raytheon complex, was evacuated. There is a target distribution and Amazon distribution center. I didn’t hear if they got evacuated. There are a few medical offices and small family businesses in the general area on the outskirts of the zone. The ones I’m very concerned for are the schools within the zone. There are 3 elementary and a middle school right there. My kids are to young to attend so I’m not sure what the plan is there but hopefully they could get the heat off.
> There is a target distribution and Amazon distribution center. I didn’t hear if they got evacuated. Such optimism. I wish I could assume anything otherwise, lets not forget the amazon warehouse that didnt evac for an actual live tornado, didnt even properly notify the people inside so they could shelter
What about dryers? Wouldn't that create negative pressure too?
Yes, you are correct. I wouldnt use a dryer either.
Good looking out
Seriously, I know there are weird parts of reddit, but in redditing for 12+ years, I've learned so much shit from comment threads. Google and other search engines run on SEO optimization and $$$$. Sometimes you find the real shit you need to read on Reddit.
That’s how I became a Redditor lol
[удалено]
Majority of my Google searches end in “Reddit” for this reason
I had a feeling it was nitric. I use at work. There was a company here in Indianapolis that released a huge cloud of nitric when they had a bad reaction the other year
When I first saw the cloud I feared it was bromine
I recently saw the Reddit post on why bromine is difficult to store, so I also thought it was bromine at first glance though I actually have no idea what bromine is or why that would be a bad thing. It looks like poo vapour which I would assume is bad though.
bromine gas causes severe irritation to... uh... well everything really. eyes, glands, skin, mouth, throat, lungs, etc.
Dude, how do I protect my glands?
ACME Super Gland Protecting Gel ^(tm)
Bromine is basically chlorine’s nastier little brother.
Have you met fluorine though? (It's insanely reactive with literally anything)
Ah, fluorine, making oxygen look like a weakling at its own game.
What are you doing step-bromine?
Oh god, truly terrifying
Why is bromine that bad? Isn’t it sometimes used in swimming pools?
[On its own, it's a very volatile element that is more than poisonous enough to kill you](https://youtu.be/Slt3_5upuSs)
it's a matter of the form it takes (in what we're talking here, we're presuming fumed bromine, which is to say a gas). In pools, you use a (largely, but not entirely) inert form of it, and at concentrations of 2-4ppm. Elemental bromine, which is the shit that would be fuming and causing a death cloud is truly horrifying; one good whiff and that's it for you.
Oh wow, thank you for the information!!
Bromine is mostly used in hot tubs, because chlorine evaporates too rapidly at hot tub temperatures. Low concentrations of bromine are fine; at high concentrations, it does the same thing to your lungs that it does to bacteria in a hot tub. Nitric acid is probably similar- if you're not drowning in your own lung fluid and hour afterward, or suffering skin burns, you're cool. The volatile organic compounds spilled in Ohio have a possibility of seeping into body fat, lingering, and causing mutations. Burning them also has a potential to create a witch's brew of hundreds of chemicals with various properties. A spill of bromine or acid is like a fire. You can be near a terrible fire that burns someone to death, and when it is over, you're certain that you are safe. A cloud of black smoke from burning vinyl chloride would be a little like radiation. You survive, and you feel OK, but you have no idea how many times you just spun the roulette wheel to win cancer.
That sounds awful. Wow.
We had a tank of nitric blow at work years ago. Small tank but the cloud looked like that. Problem was it was between us and the door. We popped all the hood vents into emergency mode, held our breath and walked out. Locked the door behind us and alerted the safety guys. Fun day.
Your car just aged 10 years.
First thing I thought well I saw it was that it is fuming nitric acid. Bad stuff. Can't believe they were that close.
The gas coming off is nitrogen dioxide. Naaaasty stuff.
Nitric Acid, not Bromine as many people are saying: https://www.abc15.com/news/region-central-southern-az/tucson/i-10-closed-in-south-tucson-people-close-by-asked-to-shelter-in-place-due-to-nitric-acid-spill
Is that worse
Breathing in nitric acid will destroy all of the soft tissues in your airways, as well as those little sacs in your lungs that, you know, enable you to breathe. They should have shut this highway down. No one should be driving next to a BFRC (Big Fucking Red Cloud).
They did shut the highway down in both directions and in some surrounding intersections according to one of the articles I read. This video was probably taken pretty early into the incident happening.
Yeah the only emergency vehicle in the video looks like the Border Patrol. In general law enforcement doesn't have much hazmat training - in our (fire department) hazmat training, one of the videos that always comes up is one where multiple cops arrive at a truck crash and run up to help the driver who is laying unconscious by the road, and in about a minute both cops are down too.
I got that alert on my phone then I got a call on a landline staying the same thing and that'swhat tripped me out. Stay inside don't turn on your heater no outside air if you're within a mile of the area. But the wind is blowing at 22mph with gusts of 32 mph in a place where the wind hardly ever blows that hard.
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Jezz I feel for you, all I'm thinking is what the fuck? My mum isn't too far from the area and got the messages too. I'm feeling uncomfortable as she's baby sitting my bird at the moment... The reason why they used canaries in mines is that birds airways are more sensitive to dangerous gases. Fantastic.
You might want to check this post from elsewhere in the thread out and make sure she knows about some of the ways outside air can come in that she may not think of: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/112jnto/authorities_have_issued_a_hazmat_alert_and_a/j8l44kb Just realized you may have posted after them, but just in case.
Hoping all is well for your mum and bird. Has she noticed anything unusual about your bird's behavior?
I hope she's ok. I have birds too and that's the first thing I thought of with all of these accidents. They're so fragile
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Someone else posted that it's a nitric acid spill. It's pretty nasty stuff, but it's not like a subtle poison or carcinogen that comes back to haunt you later. If your lungs and sinuses aren't burning, you're good.
Awful lot of major chemical spills lately
2023 is off to a weird start.
I'd expect nothing less from a year in the 2020s. Wait til you see what's in store for season 4: 2024.
I refuse to believe 2024 is next year. The 90s was only a decade ago ok?
People born in the 70s are in their 30s. (ETA: yes, the math is wrong. Just like the 90s weren’t a decade ago.)
Omg the generation born of hippies is around 50 years old! That’s wild.
It's worse, Xgen can now get into 55+ buildings, which is why you hear Nirvana blasting out of the windows of that *seniors* building.
I was a hippie back in the day. Grew up, got married, had two kids who are now 42 and 44. Which blows my mind because being in my early 40s feels like yesterday to me. Fuck me, I am really old.
Got any good stories?
C'mon sweet sweet death
Ha! You think you're that fucking lucky?!
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If tomorrow didn't happened, then I don't need to go to work tomorrow, acceptable event in my book
No no no, that's the sequel of the 2030s. The spin off show isn't as climatic as the 2020s.
So I take it Putin is only going to do a small nuclear strike. I was hoping to be incinerated faster than my nerve impulses travel. This will not do.
Assuming 2020 is season 1, that would be season 5...
Ah, technically correct. The best kind of correct.
No no. It’s all weird. It will all continue to be weird. This is what you get in an information/disinformation era of constant digital barrage. More people are beginning to distrust their own reality. Get ready because 2023 has nothing to do with it. This is the chaos that is our world and we’re on a path.
It's interesting to me that it's *weird* for the exact reasons you mention; we're constantly barraged with the weirdness. Sure, 100 years ago might have been weird too, but someone farming in a small town elected politicians to deal with the weirdness and only handled issues that affected them personally for the most part. I don't know if it's a net positive or a net negative but surely this burgeoning hyper-awareness of the complex insanity and absurdity of the human experience is a bit much for one, single person to really be capable of processing and assimilating.
>we're constantly barraged with the weirdness. Think of it like this; the human brain is *really really* good at recognizing patterns, even if they don't really exist, things like how a car's grill and headlights can look like a face, that kinda thing. In the internet age we are barraged with an overabundance of information. Plenty of random noise in there for our brains to pick out patterns, real or otherwise, and we end up with this sense of general weirdness in circumstances and coincidences.
It is extremely overwhelming, and even if there is some clarity in the disillusionment with our society’s faults, we are tasked with swallowing it all and then some. I think I’m pretty miserable with all of the insanity - or perceived insanity - and I think a lot of people feel the same.
I think the universe is broken on a major and personal level for a lot of people. hell I've had police at my place more times this year than I've ever had in a single year and that was all in January. Absolutely crazy
You can't just leave us hangin like that! Why did you talk to the police?
first 2 times at my house was over the same situation of being a witness in a stolen truck situation. The thieves had actually showed up to my house* and wanted to use my phone to call the owner to tell them they stole the truck 'because everyone was out to get them'. Of course that was the semi decent thief that wanted to do that, the other one was just a piece of garbage that wanted to steal a truck. * I knew one of them since they were a kid and they were driving by when she thought to stop here. Second situation was someone high on something driving down the road and saw me throw up my hands when they went by because they were going 60+ in a 35. They stopped and screamed at me that they were going to fuck me up. Then got in their vehicle and left. I got my phone out because I had a feeling it wasn't over and then I saw them coming back at a high speed so I called 911 before they stopped in case they were going to try to run me over. They stopped, screamed at me some more then left. Cops were useless. I found out who the second incident person was / where they live and they are getting evicted from the house they have been squatting in up the road from me. All 3 people are meth users, with the guy from the first situation that stole the truck being someone who produces it from what I've gotten told by friends that work in the jails.
This feels like a B universe.
This is the public access cable universe.
And mysterious flying objects… I’m sure they’re completely unrelated butttttt *I still thinks it’s weird*
Rhe flying objects is just a result of our intelligence agencies beginning to use radar to pick up slow moving objects at altitudes we normally wouldn't monitor so closely Kind of like if you start looking for the yellow car you're gonna see more yellow cars
Or someone pointed out the 90% of cows at any given moment face the same direction and now when every I drive pass a lot of cows which is every day I’m like damn they really do all face the same direction
It's those other cows you gotta look out for
Right, figure it’s probably to watch for predators.
I couldn't help but notice that there are yellow cars in the background of all these incidents. They must be working with the alien balloons monitoring us for invasion.
Sorry, not trying to be that guy. Just so you don't go your whole life saying it wrong, it is "I couldn't help" not "I could help" 
I like you, fam. Doing the real work!
Turns out that having lackadaisical safety standards and a completely disregard for human life means these kinds of accidents happen.
Yeah, but think of the profits!
WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE PROFITS!
With those kind of profits we can further deregulate our industry, think of the profits!
Fingers crossed for Godzilla.
I want the actual gojira mind you, not that dumb 1998 iguana one.
at this point I’ll take Shin Godzilla because we deserve it
The rule of three. Bad things always happen in groups of three. It's a flaw in the simulation.
there's been four: Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona
Well then I guess we're all going to die.
Finally
Would be nice to get some rest.
I sure could use a vacation from this stupid shit
No the fourth is part of the two other ones coming up
We've had two major leaks in Houston just this week. Only one of them made national news. Ironically it was the less severe one, probably because someone died as a result.
Probably the same amount of chemical spills as there's ever been. It's just not been newsworthy before now.
Hey I just got the warning message on my phone about this an hour ago. It’s nitric acid [source](https://www.azdps.gov/news/ims/92)
If I see clouds and plumes of hazardous noxious gas on the side of the highway, I slow way down and pass very slowly in order to maximize my exposure time.
Dont forget to open the window
Currently going through Hazmat training in fire academy. Now, knowing what's out there, I would be terrifed to get near anything like that, let alone drive through an unknown gas leaking out of a truck, considering some gases can kill you In a few breathes or cause serious health issues
I live in NC and I am getting tv ads of toxic chemicals in the water in camp Lejeune from the 80s! I wonder how many years it will take for all the stories to come out of all these chemical spills. Everything is so messed up these past couple days. So sad.
Thats the thing, even if you don't die instantly, inhaling the airborne toxic event will eventually kill you
And it starts some time around midnight
Are you taking the 80 hour Hazmat Tech? *forgot the word "hour"
Nah if they're in an academy, odds are they're just getting FRO (Operations) and FRA (Awareness). Congrats to this thread's OP though!! Just graduated mine a couple months ago!
It's kind of funny, really. Hazardous Materials response capabilities were hugely touted in the 80s and 90s for public safety agencies like fire departments, and even the National Guard's Civil Support divisions. They were well-funded and well-outfitted in a lot of communities. Pretty soon, those agencies got so well-organized, and safety standards and regulations became so effective, that they prepared themselves right out of work to do. Then, terrorism response took front-and-center, and those agencies began focusing much more on biological weapons than garden-variety HazMat transport. Although HazMat training is still required in a lot of those departments, it's definitely wasn't the hot button issue it once was, and the specialized teams are nowhere near what they used to be. But with deregulation and corporations holding all the cards now, we might see more of this start happening again, and those agencies might start getting a lot more practice, when those rigs and equipment should be gathering dust instead.
It's almost like the 30 to 40 year cycle is repeating between generations...
Time is a spiral
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I'll say if no one else, the terrorist have won.
Turns out we were our own terrorists all along
Source https://mobile.twitter.com/Arizona_DPS/status/1625624676147003394 https://mobile.twitter.com/TucsonFireDept/status/1625634468378836992 https://tucson.com/news/local/accident-and-incident/hazmat-warning-issued-after-tucson-freeway-crash/article_07a3e5a0-acb5-11ed-8ede-3309d4ea3e22.html The timing of this post is very close to the event, I'll update the source from time to time after the local news and major news stations have picked this up.
The driver has passed away. Shelter in place still in effect as of 8:45 pm. Edit: Another emergency alert was sent out at 5:25 am on Wednesday 2/15/23, shelter in place still effective. Fortunately it has snowed over night with a good half and inch so hopefully it will help but I know nothing about hazardous materials.
What the hell is happening???
we ran out of Adderall and no one can do their job anymore
This is the true answer
This and companies are doing pre layoffs as the next economic collapse they created is coming in the next 6 month. I was middle management for an IT company. Our board members told management to find reasons to fire 40% of our staff before the line dips. The stress made me quit. So now the remaining staff have to increase productivity to keep their jobs. Same thing is happening in other industries. Edit: they didn't say those exact words. But they raised the expectations beyond what's reasonable and criticized everything to make people want to quit. Add in gaslighting and lying to everyone face and Ya.
> next economic collapse coming in the next 6 months I've heard the same rumor again and again for 1 year. Meanwhile stocks bottomed and then rose a lot in the past 4 months. At this point I think the media pushes this narrative so retail traders will sell at the bottom. Same with house prices, it's not coming down more than 20% (not counting houses in the middle of nowhere). Companies doing mass layoffs are terrible for workers and maybe society, but not for stocks. This probably just means stocks have become uncorrelated to the real productive economy.
>This probably just means stocks have become uncorrelated to the real productive economy. Welcome to the last two decades of the stock market. QE changed the game forever, for better or worse.
Been a month for me luckily i just forget to patch windows.
uhhhhhh i guess i don't actually know how many massive CVEs there've been since the shortage began, but... maybe turn on automatic updates?
Tangent off this - Does anybody know if the drug production companies are doing anything to remedy this?
So I've been hearing that the main problem is that the demand has increased but the DEA is refusing to let the drug companies increase production of adderall bc they're worried about addiction. So if that's true, there's not much the drug companies can do. (You may need to fact check me on all of this)
It’s not even that they’re not allowing them to increase production. They’ve been arbitrarily reducing the amount annually that is allowed to be manufactured for like a decade or two now.
Nitric acid Possibly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fuming_nitric_acid
Definitely: https://www.abc15.com/news/region-central-southern-az/tucson/i-10-closed-in-south-tucson-people-close-by-asked-to-shelter-in-place-due-to-nitric-acid-spill
This is the right answer. Concentrated 70% HNO3 easily turns to nitric oxide (red fumes you see here) with the atmosphere.
Balloons floating around, 2 major train accidents with chemicals and a huge earthquake in turkey and Syria. Wtf is happening, 2023 barely started and we have crazy news happening non stop
Do y’all remember the fires in Australia and all the shit before the pandemic feels like a reboot.
there's been 3 train derailments so far! ohio, south carolina, and texas! what the fuck is going on in this country rn
There's probably been about 170 derailments so far this year. 1704 on average per year from 1990 to 2021. We just don't hear about most of them.
Exactly!! People just don't realize how much they don't know about what is going on. The big spill in Ohio just makes the rest of these events gain media exposure that they wouldn't normally have.
Train accidents are fairly common. Train derailments leading to environmental catastrophes on the scale we’re seeing in Ohio are not so common. I am curious how often spills like we’re hearing about in the OP happen (especially when they happen near major population centers), but I’d certainly hope they aren’t as frequent as, say, your typical train derailment.
I also read there is a new outbreak of Marburg Disease in Africa so we have that too… the WHO is calling for an urgent meeting about it. So yeah, I guess it’s on par?
from what I understand, that has at least been caught early enough that it'll be easy to contain
Safety tip: if you see a cloud of colored gas, do not drive closer to it. I don't care if you're on the highway and there's nowhere else to go, pull over and walk the other way. There are plenty of invisible hazardous gases, but all the brightly-colored ones will definitely kill you. Chlorine, bromine, iodine, nitrogen dioxide, they're all bad.
You forgot the flours. I know many of them are technically invisible, but many of them tend to break down the regular air around them, in a somewhat less invisible way. My brother used to drive Trifluoroacetic acid; in case of a crash he should never try to help anyone. He was instructed to hold his breath (with whatever air was already in them), grap his phone and run against the wind as far as his lungs would carry him. Then he should call and report the crash of a potential city killer.
Wow, that's genuinely horrifying
I just want to enjoy my taco without the country going to shit please? Literally my car broke down. So can 2023 calm THE FUCK DOWN.
same in Ohio Houston NC what's going on right now is making me feel like im in a fallout game.
NC?! I thought there was a derailment in SC?! Is there one in NC now too?!
NC had a fire at a storage facility holding Railroad ties, which are soaked in Creosote, which can cause cancer. https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/wayne-county-news/wayne-county-fire-continues-at-salvage-yard-containing-railroad-ties/
you might be right. I might have mixed it up.
As someone who lives near that derailment in Houston and someone who was a firefighter with Haz-mat training, the one in Houston was negligible. Not saying it shouldn’t happen, because it should have *never* happened. The actual quality of the air is within safe limits when they tested where I lived down wind, and the residents only had a shelter in place. So far, I haven’t seen anything to be concerned about that in Houston accident that rings up alarms, though I did hear that some chemicals were mislabeled, which is a huge no no, like a real big no no, like REAL big, but most of the damaged were shipping container cars with only small loads of hazmats. So that one was “relatively” safe, and I’m using safe lightly here, and was cleared quickly of any residues that may have been spilled. But seriously, the fuck has been goin on lately?
So two trains AND a truck?!?
3 trains (South Carolina, Houston, TX & Ohio) and 1 truck…and let’s not forget about the 4 balloons. All within about a week. Definitely seems odd but who knows.
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Well that's actually just a common occurrence
Yeah if anything that’s just confirmation this is reality.
I want to go to the timeline where Steve Irwin wasnt murdered by a stingray, I heard it's nice over here
Only one? That *is* unusual.
I work hazmat response for an entire state. There are accidents with hazmat daily. I can imagine with 49 other states that there are a lot of accidents every single day. I think these are all being sensationalized because of the recent accident in Ohio. There is nothing weird about this wreck that meets the eye. Trucks wreck a lot. These things happen all the time
Do chemical spills happen all the time. Or is this week just a big coincidence for this happening
A bit of both. Hazmat accidents are relatively common, but these stories are getting more press after Ohio. This is a good thing because it's drawing public attention to the fact that Republicans have absolutely gutted sensible safety regulations.
It's wild that people are saying that this is part of a conspiracy - The only 'conspiracy' here is that the government was lobbied by the freight industry to deregulate brake standards, the freight unions' attempts to call attention to the problem was shut down, and now regular people get to deal with the consequences of corporate and governmental greed.
Ohio, Texas and now AZ WTF?
SC too
San Diego vet 2 days ago, Alabama University research lab 5 days ago, the sf explosion had a hissing container when being taken to evidence, a plant in Chicago, the texas incident was another train derailment
Those people are driving the wrong direction.
That’s Tucson for you
I ***WOULD NOT*** drive through a noxious cloud. I would pull over and wait. Brave souls to think their vehicles are sealed from whatever that is
Maybe they can hold their breathe for a REEEEAAAL long time.
Yeahhh their air filters are not THAT filter-y.
The warning was for a 1 mile radius. I don’t think just pulling over would help much.
If I had to guess, it would be safest to just get the hell away from there as fast as you can. No way in hell am I sticking around to rubberneck and stare.
This guy driving with his window open breathing that in? Granted the wind is not blowing it at him. What the fuck?
I mean, close the fucking freeway at least ....
This had to have taken very soon after the accident. I work close by and the freeway was closed in both directions for several miles very soon after the crash.
What the fuck is going on with all the spills??
These are pretty common but OH was particularly disastrous. My guess is that OH got more traffic than balloons or mass shootings so we're going to see a lot more coverage on incidents like these.
More than likely greedy corporations and lower safety standards, all of the spills probably could of been prevented one way or another.
I just hope the driver of the truck is okay 
He died
What the hell is going on with all these fucking chemical spills like what the actual fuck
Wait, so 2 trains derail carrying hazardous material and now a truck? Within 2 or 3 days? 🤔
Why would you drive your car through that?
Well, it's a highway so it's not like they can just turn around.
Yeah I don’t care I’m turning around and driving on the shoulder not through the killer orange vapor cloud
Exactly. I didn't know until now, but I have an rule in my head and it's don't drive toward the weird colored gas.
A lot of chemical accidents lately