3 missing after warehouse filled with fireworks, ammunition explodes in Kilgore
Yes, handling fireworks should be left too professionals. Sometimes, though, even that doesn't work....
KILGORE -- Three people were missing and unaccounted for after a series of explosions destroyed a warehouse full of fireworks today and damaged some nearby businesses and residences.
Flames from the explosion burned pickup trucks. The cab of a tractor-trailer rig near the large metal warehouse was little more than a skeleton. Debris littered the ground.
"It's pretty bad," Mayor Joe T. Parker said several hours after the explosion. "We've got houses in the neighborhood damaged, people out of their houses, and we're still fighting a fire although we've got the explosives contained, we believe."
Parker said the missing, two men and a woman, were inside the building when the explosion occurred about 5 p.m.
Three or four women working at the Lamb Entertainment's offices near downtown Kilgore suffered minor injuries, Parker said. One of them was taken to the hospital, and the others were walking around outside the building with minor injuries, he said. None of those injuries was believed to be life-threatening.
"We've received five patients that were either living in the area or were around the area that came in with, fortunately, minor injuries -- cuts and scrapes. They're being treated now and will be released," said Bob Ellzey, chief executive officer of Laird Memorial Hospital in Kilgore.
"From what I understand, the percussion impacted several blocks around the warehouse. Emergency workers are combing the area, but we've not gotten any assessment of any injuries out there, so we're kind of in a waiting mode right now."
It sounds like someone wasn't paying attention to our safety signs.
