Incident Commander Discusses N.C. Blast

Chief Deral Raynor of the North Lenoir, N.C. Volunteer Fire Department hopes he'll never experience another disaster like the massive factory explosion last Wednesday that left three victims dead and nine in critical condition with severe burns.

"It was a massive response. It was just unbelievable," said Raynor, who served as Incident Commander at the West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. blast. The response consisted of about 200 firefighters from 25 fire departments from Lenoir County and all of the surrounding counties.

Raynor said he was in the next county over when the explosion occurred but he both heard and saw the bast, which he described as a white mushroom cloud.

Firefighters were dispatched at 1:27 p.m. and were initially told that a a plane had hit the factory, because the structure is located less than 400 yards from the Kinston Regional Jetport, Raynor said.

The first unit arrived on scene at 1:32 p.m.

"When you first pulled up it was just disbelief," he said. "Pretty much nobody around here had ever seen anything of that magnitude."

"We encountered heavy fire, heavy black smoke, and numerous injured victims exiting the plant and running toward us," he said. "You could hear victims screaming for help."

Three rescue teams were set up to enter the structure, consisting of about eight people each from various departments.

Raynor said there were five fire chiefs on the scene who were either doing interior fire suppression or rescues. "I was one of the crews in and it was... I'm at a loss for words," he said. "There were steel beams hanging everywhere, everything in the place was on fire. The walls were cracked, the windows were busted out. We were crawling over debris eight to ten feet high."

One of those victims screaming for help was a woman that they just couldn't get to in time, Raynor said. There were about 135 people working at the plant at the time of the blast. Thirty-eight were injured, with nine remaining in critical condition as of Sunday night.

The rescuers brought out about 25 people, from dazed to severely burned. Some victims were stuck in the "penthouse" area of the structure where it was 2-3 stories high and the explosion had blown the building completely apart, leaving nothing standing but steel beams. "There were people just hanging on the beams," Raynor said. Three people were brought down from this area and are among the nine victims in critical condition.

Raynor said the structural integrity of the factory was terrible and they pulled all responders out as soon as they thought they had accounted for all the victims. The worst of the fire was knocked down by midnight Wednesday, but the blaze was not considered "under control" until Friday at 3:15 p.m.

Raynor said that when people ask him to describe the experience, he tells them, "It was my 9/11 - my World Trade Center or my Pentagon," because this was the largest disaster responders in his region had ever dealt with. Until this incident, the worst they had seen was a major house fire the week before and a large store fire about 20 years ago.

Although the fire departments on scene would normally handle EMS, Raynor said there were EMS officials from all the surrounding counties as well as ER doctors and a surgeon on hand. Nine rescue helicopters, all those available to eastern North Carolina, were on scene and used to transport the critical patients, he said.

Three firefighters were injured due to smoke inhalation. Two of them were treated and released the same day, but one has lung damage and was released from the hospital Friday but later re-admitted, Raynor said.

There were still many responders on the scene over the weekend. Raynor said they had large flare-ups Saturday night due to burning rubber products at the site, but it appeared that everything had been extinguished by 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Raynor said that when he got to go up in a helicopter and see the area from the air, he could see debris from the explosion scattered over a four-mile area around the plant.

The chief said the timing of the event was ironic because area responders had just dealt with one of the largest fires they had ever seen a week earlier, at a 12,000 sq. ft home. He said it's been a stressful time, and firefighters had still been missing or replacing some gear from the residential fire when they were hit with the factory blast.

The department has 65 members and operates out of two stations to serve a population of 16,000 in a rural area of 25 sq. miles, and runs about 325 calls a year. Mandatory critical incident debriefings were being held Sunday and Monday. Raynor credited all the other departments involved but declined to name them in case he left any of them out.

Raynor said the ATF and other federal agencies appeared to be wrapping up their investigations and planning to leave Monday.

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