(Updated: 12:49 p.m.) Thirteen to 15 people have been taken to the hospital for respiratory problems after a leak of chlorine gas at H. Krevit & Co. on Welton Street near the Hamden border.
Company President Thomas Ross said that at about 9:40 a.m. Thursday the railroad company CSX was removing rail cars from the property. Workers accidentally yanked at the wrong car, one that was attached to an air tube. As a result, the air tube was broken. Chlorine gas started to escape. The leak was outside the building, but gas fumes crept inside.
The company’s emergency response unit was able to shut off the valve to the chlorine gas within minutes. Three members of the response team put on oxygen masks and went in to shut off the valve.
The building was evacuated, and remained evacuated at noon.
The company has 44 employees. About a dozen were on the site at the time. The 13 – 15 people taken to the hospital included at least three employees plus people living and working nearby. They were taken to both Yale-New Haven and St. Raphael’s Hospitals. Ross said he checked in with his three employees and “they were doing OK.”
Leeway, a social-service facility for people with AIDS/HIV, is across the street. It, too, was evacuated because of a chlorine smell — the gas had apparently been sucked in through an HVAC unit. Five Hazmat technicians (pictured) from the state Department of Environmental Protection emergency response unit checked out the building at about 12:20 p.m. By that time the levels inside were not harmful and the building was reopened for entry, according to emergency response coordinator Rosanne Stavola.
Krevit’s Ross (pictured at right) called 911 to report the leak. Fire Chief Michael Grant (pictured at left) and firefighters arrived within five minutes. By that time, Grant said, you couldn’t smell the chlorine. “Everything went off well,” Grant said. His firefighters’ job was to tend to inhalation victims and check the building to make sure it was OK to reenter.
The company has been in business since 1919, when it opened up in a small facility on Howard Avenue. The fifth-generation family business manufactures household bleach. The chlorine gas is a raw ingredient used to make the bleach.
Ross said the company has not had this scale of a leakage problem before. The company has been the focus of safety concerns before: In January, an employee came into contact with nitric acid, according to WTNH, and in 2006 the same news channel found the company to be lacking in proper security.
Ross blamed today’s incident on the CSX Railroad Company. The company is supposed to advise the factory half an hour before arriving on the premises, but failed to do so, Ross said. He held CSX responsible for causing the leak by yanking the wrong rail car.
CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan said the company is investigating the incident. “We want to investigate before commenting on what occurred.”