TEXAS CITY, Texas -- The first lawsuit has been filed against Marathon Petroleum Co. stemming from a chemical tank rupture late last week that sent 3,000 people from their homes and more than 830 people to the hospital.
The suit was filed Monday by Stephen E. Patterson, a reserve deputy constable in Galveston County, and Lynn Nita Smith, a Texas City resident.
It names Marathon, its Texas City plant manager and a plant subcontractor, accusing them of gross negligence in the accident. It seeks an unspecified amount of damages, including compensation for medical bills, pain and suffering and mental anguish.
Patterson helped evacuate residents, and claims Marathon officials failed to notify him of the nature of the chemical.
Marathon Petroleum has placed a full-page ad in the Texas City Sun listing a telephone number for residents having claims associated with the acid cloud that spread across the area Friday night, damaging trees and other foliage.
Claims were expected to range from property damage reports to payment of medical and hotel bills, Marathon spokesmen said.
'We're trying to return to normal,' Marathon spokesman Ira Winston said Monday as workers were back on the job and displaced residents were back in their homes.
'We're making arrangements for completion of the investigation phase and we'll move to resume the turnaround as soon as possible,' he said of the plant, which has been shut down for two weeks during a routine period of inspection and repairs when the accident happened.
Marathon spokesman Bill Ryder said it would be some time before investigators release any reports into the extent of the damage from the cloud. Residents were evacuated Friday afternoon after an acid cloud spewed from a tank at the refinery. Hospitals have treated more than 835 patients since the spill.
The hydrofluoric acid leak began when a crane lifting a heater convection unit dropped it on a tank, severing a 3-inch pipe and punching two holes in the tank, Ryder said.
Hydrofluoric acid, used in the refining of gasoline, is a colorless liquid that is corrosive to metals and tissue. The liquid or its fumes can cause severe burns.
Health officials who have been sampling air, water and soil, have found no contamination outside the refinery, Mayor Emmett Lowry said.
Ryder said Marathon was conducting an investigation, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration also planned its own investigation into the leak.
Ryder said Marathon covered all medical claims from the leak until midnight Sunday and that further claims would be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Authorities lifted all restrictions on the evacuated 50-block area near the refinery about 10 p.m Sunday after workers at the plant finished draining hydrofluoric acid from the damaged tank.
