MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Authorities in Rockdale County, Ga., which is outside of Atlanta, have issued a new shelter-in-place order for 90,000 residents after a facility with pool and spa chemicals caught fire Sunday. The order was issued as the Atlanta Fire and Rescue Department (ph) conducts air quality tests. Marisa Mecke with member station WABE has this report.
MARISA MECKE, BYLINE: Kayla Altland lives about 2 miles from the BioLab facility in the suburban Atlanta town of Conyers. She was getting ready to take her kids out for their Sunday activities when she received a phone emergency alert to close her windows and turn off the air conditioning.
KAYLA ALTLAND: It wasn't until probably 11:30 that we actually saw a smoke cloud out - like, that it had started to come over to where we lived.
MECKE: Shortly after, she got another message to evacuate. So her husband, their two kids, and her mother-in-law packed up and went to a hotel further away. Her kids have asthma.
ALTLAND: We just wanted to make sure that, you know, they weren't impacted in any way.
MECKE: She was among 17,000 residents who received an evacuation order. Ninety thousand more were ordered to shelter in place and schools are closed. The fire started on the roof of the BioLab chemical facility and was quickly extinguished, but it caused the sprinkler system to malfunction, dowsing water-reactive chemicals. Here's Rockdale County fire chief Marian McDaniel.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARIAN MCDANIEL: Once the water made contact with that chemical, we have the plume that you've seen for the past two days.
MECKE: That plume had been drifting to other parts of metro Atlanta, where people started to complain about a chemical smell and throat and eye irritation. Bryan Vasser with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says they have been testing air quality at and around the BioLab site.
BRYAN VASSER: So the primary constituents that we're worried about are chlorine or hydrochloric acid. Both of those are given off in this reaction that's kind of ongoing at the site.
MECKE: He says the EPA is seeing very little of both outside the immediate vicinity of the BioLab. Emergency officials in Atlanta say their testing has shown that so far the levels of chemicals in the air are safe for most people. The EPA and local agencies say they'll continue testing.
For NPR News, I'm Marisa Mecke in Atlanta. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
