An explosion at Quick Turn Anodizing and Black Oxide Coatings in Guthrie, Kentucky Jan. 18 killed one person and injured four others.
According to WHOP radio, Guthrie Police Chief Dean Blumel says a “truck was off-loading cutting grease into a stainless steel tank outside when lye somehow got into the mixture and caused the explosion.” The chief says the tank was blown through the building and came to rest indoors on the other side of the structure.
The station reported that Todd County Coroner Timothy Wells confirmed one fatality, two people were taken to Tennova Health Hospital in Clarksville, and one person was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.
According to the Todd County Emergency Management Agency:
Facility security photo shows the fire after the explosion.Starting around noon a vacuum truck waste hauler from Onsite Environmental was removing a alkaline lye solution from a holding tank at the Quick Turn Anodizing facility on 2nd street. Near the end of that process, at a few minutes before 1:00 what was described as white smoke or steam was seen coming from the area of the truck which was parked directly in front of the building. Within minutes the tank containing approximately 300 gallons of the solution catastrophically failed at it’s end cap seam. The end cap flew approximately 125’ to the north landing in a vacant lot the remainder of the tank went through the exterior of the building, through an interior partition hit a support beam and finally coming to a stop about 100’ away just short of exiting the rear of the building. The fatality occurred when this flying tank struck two employees working near the center of the facility. Also injured were the driver of the truck who was standing near it and was thrown into the vacant lot, a Guthrie city employee who had seen the initial smoke and went to investigate and another Quick Turn employee who was inside the building."
