Winston-Salem urges residents near blazing fertilizer plant to evacuate due to possible explosion
CBSN
Thousands of people living near an uncontrolled fire at a North Carolina fertilizer plant were being urged to evacuate Tuesday as firefighters warned that chemicals at the site could cause a large explosion.
Authorities drove through neighborhoods and knocked on doors asking residents to leave within a one-mile radius of the Winston Weaver Company fertilizer plant on the northside of Winston-Salem, where the fire started Monday night. The evacuation area included about 6,500 people in 2,500 homes, the Winston-Salem Fire Department said.
"We want to make sure that right now we're evacuating everybody in this one-mile radius," Winston-Salem Battalion Chief Patrick Grubbs told reporters early Tuesday.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
The knock at the door came at nighttime on Mother's Day 2008 in Oregon, where Jessica Ellis' parents lived. It was around 9:20 p.m. and his wife, Linda, was already in bed; her father Steve Ellis told CBS News, that he thought someone let their animals out — but two soldiers in Class A uniforms were standing at the door.