Nov. 22—CHANDLER — A massive explosion and fire at Chandler Feed Company's grain elevator in Chandler rocked the community during the noon hour Wednesday.
The explosion blew out a portion of the structure and sent flames shooting toward the sky. No injuries were reported to the two individuals employed at the facility.
"I was in my city office when it happened," shared Chandler City Clerk Kris Gunnink, whose office is just a half block from the feed company's east location. "I kind of heard a rumble. Sometimes you can hear that when trucks go down our main avenue, but this was more than a rumble — it was just a full-on explosion."
Gunnink said she stepped outside of Chandler's City Hall just as bank employees were doing the same across the street.
"There was ash on fire, floating through the air," she said of the situation. "Several from the bank are firefighters."
With the fire hall attached to city hall, they didn't have far to go to get to the trucks.
"It's all within 100 feet of each other," she said.
The Chandler Feed Company is owned by the Krosschell family, with several partners in the business. Among them is Stacey Kruisselbrink, who works at the west location — the main office for Chandler Feed.
"It was just a big boom and we didn't know what had happened," Kruisselbrink said, noting that the explosion happened at about 12:36 p.m. Wednesday.
As of 5 p.m., she said the cause of the blast isn't known.
One of the oldest structures in the complex, the grain elevator was rebuilt after the June 16, 1992 tornado that went through Chandler, she said, but she was unsure if it was partially or totally reconstructed.
The grain elevator housed both corn and soybeans, and elevated grain to adjacent grain bins, Kruisselbrink said. It isn't yet known how much grain was destroyed by the explosion and fire.
A command center was set up at the former Chandler School, which is now owned by Monogram Meat Snacks, and tankers were hauling water from both Chandler and Lake Wilson initially.
The Chandler Feed Co. also has locations in Woodstock, Edgerton, Hardwick, Leota and Pipestone.
Fire departments initially responding to the blaze included Chandler, Lake Wilson, Edgerton, Iona, Worthington, Pipestone, Slayton and Woodstock.
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