Fire officials: "there was a little lack of communication" around coke plant emergency

FOLLANSBEE, WV (WTOV) - A Saturday evening emergency situation at a Follansbee coke plant sparked concern among many residents.

The Mountain State Carbon plant located along Route 2 suffered a complete loss of power, resulting in massive flames and billowing smoke clouds emitting from the facility.

Although the flames and smoke may have looked bad, a former employee at the plant says it is all part of a normal procedure.

"It's a normal process," said Andy Williams. "This is just a rare occurrence that, you know, you lose power and the transformer and everything."

But things got more complicated when the power stayed off, forcing firefighters to respond to the carbon plant - not to battle a fire, but to help keep the coke ovens cool.

"When we went in pretty much our specific purpose was to cool certain areas of the #8 coke battery so the guys working on top of the battery can work without all the heat," said Follansbee Fire Chief Larry Rea. "There were little spot fires."

Brooke County emergency dispatchers say that firefighters from Follansbee, Colliers, Beech Bottom and Franklin were on the scene as well as several other units from across the region.

"The biggest reason for all the extra fire departments we brought in was being with the power outage, they couldn't pump water," said Rea.

With water storage tanks dwindling and being unable to pump water, Rea called in more tankers to help. However, even with a prolonged period without power, the public was never in danger.

"No, there was absolutely no harm to the public," said Rea.

He described the situation as controlled chaos. Rea has more than 45 years of experience working with the plant and says he has never seen anything quite this bad.

"This was the worst that I have seen that battery like that. Again, this is the first time they have ever lost, in the history of the coke plant, the first time they have ever lost complete power plant wide."

Throughout the entire emergency, he says that plant officials and his team worked together to tackle a task they have never faced on a level this severe.

"They're trained, they know what to do. They handle this in the utmost professional manner."

The only thing that Rea says he would change with the whole scenario is the way they communicate with the public.

"I'll admit it, there was a little lack of communication. The EMA was notified, Bob Fowler, head of EMA wasn't notified in a timely fashion."

In the future, if an event like Saturday evenings would occur again, Rea says he would utilize the city's one call system to notify residents as well as the county's resources.

Rea also told News9 that the area likely experienced an exceedance of air pollution levels, but the biggest thing to take away from the entire incident is that the public was never in danger.