January 14, 2010
Morehead City Port Shut for Third Day Because of Explosive Spills
The cleanup of a spill of explosive materials at the state port in Morehead City stretched into a third day Thursday, with no word on when the port might reopen.Nine 50-kilogram drums filled with the explosive PETN were punctured by a forklift early Tuesday as they were being unloaded at the port. Officials said Wednesday that they had found PETN leaking from drums in shipping containers not involved in Tuesday's accident.
100 grams of this can blow up a car/half that could rip open an airliner. There were 450,000 grams in the drums in the main spill, and an unknown amount of leakage in the secondary spills.
We're in the best of hands...
Having worked in explosives safety, noone who knows anything about explosive safety would ship 450 pounds of PETN on the same ship. This is the sort of stuff used a few grains at a time. (7,000 grains per pound for the unitiated)(all pun intended) I certainly don't know for a fact but this could be another terror attack that didn't work and the administration is trying to hide it.
Posted by: Jerry in Detroit at January 14, 2010 09:33 PMActually, Jerry, it's 50 x 2.2 lbs per kg x 9 = 990 lbs of PETN.
Posted by: SDN at January 15, 2010 12:28 PM
