Second employee dies, 9 missing after Longview Paper Mill implosion
A second employee died after the longview paper mill implosion at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in Longview, Wash., on Tuesday, and nine people were still unaccounted for Wednesday morning. Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said the response had shifted from rescue to recovery.
Goldstein said the missing workers were in their workspaces when the blast happened during a shift change, with some in break rooms and others arriving or leaving. He said it was unlikely they survived.
Scott Goldstein on the shift change
Goldstein said recovery efforts began Wednesday morning after safety officials determined conditions were stable enough to move forward. He said new estimates showed 25,000 gallons of white liquor remained in the damaged tank, down from a 90,000-gallon estimate announced Tuesday.
The remaining chemical complicates the work inside the facility. Officials said part of the Columbia River and nearby ditches were contaminated after the blast, and Brian Wood said the plant’s continuous pH monitoring showed two spikes of high pH material reaching the river, first at about 7:15 in the morning and again two or three hours later.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said, “We're bracing ourselves for this being the deadliest industrial tragedy in modern Washington State history.” His statement came as crews moved into recovery mode and families waited for identification and notification steps to begin.
Longview Fire Battalion Chief Matt Amos said recovered individuals will undergo decontamination before being transferred to the Cowlitz County Coroner for identification and family notification. He said recovery efforts would be slow, methodical and deliberate, while one firefighter who was sent to the hospital on Tuesday because of hazardous conditions was released around 7 p.m. that night.
The work now centers on finding the missing, handling recovered victims with decontamination in place, and moving them to the coroner. For the families waiting Wednesday, the shift from rescue to recovery is the clearest signal that the response has entered its next phase.
