Drill Prepares National Guard Team For Real-life Disaster

The scene Wednesday of first responders wearing bright orange hazardous material suits, scaling railroad tank cars and trying to shut off leaks was not far from the place where 42 tons of liquefied chlorine spewed from a pipe at the Pioneer Chlor Alkali plant 24 years ago. But unlike the May 1991 accident that occurred when a shutoff valve failed, sending up a toxic green cloud that draped much of Henderson and sent more than 200 people to hospitals, the leaks Wednesday at a fire training facility involved only water.