HOOD COUNTY
(WBAP/KLIF News) – New details have been revealed about what led up to an explosion at a chemical plant in Hood County Thursday morning.
Two people were injured and 27-year-old Dillon Mitchell is still missing following the fire at the Tri-Chem Industries Plant at 2600 Cresson Highway about 25 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
The Hood County Sheriff’s Department said received a call about the explosion around 9:45 a.m.
Assistant Fire Chief and Cresson Mayor Bob Cornett said they’re were 12 people inside the plant when it caught fire.
“What we were told was that they were mixing chemicals and one of the people mixing scraped his foot on the floor and then it exploded,” he said.
9 people managed to escape the blast before the building collapsed. Cornett said it’s going to be difficult to sift through the rubble.
“It is collapsed because the roof and sides all caved in and a lot of the fire is underneath. They’ll probably have to bring in cranes or bulldozers or something,” he said.
Jesse Bailey works at Metro West Transport, right next to the chemical plant, and said he was rattled by the explosion.
“One of my guys was outdoor in the yard and they saw the back door to the building and part of the roof blow out,” he said.
Bailey said they saw people running for cover as flames shot from the building. He said fire crews told everyone to stay as far from the scene as possible.
“We were kind of close it, because it’s beside our building and they told us to get back because of the smell obviously. Because if something else blows up…they don’t know the radius of it,” he said.
Fire crews from multiple departments battled the blaze and a Hazmat team from Fort Worth assisted.
