(WHAS11) For this week’s Friday Flashback, we take you back to 1981; on a Friday, Friday the 13th of February!
A malfunction at the Ralston Purina Company near U of L had dumped the chemical hexane into our sewers.
In this story you can view video of what the city was like the next morning.
The Ralston-Purina Company eventually paid millions of dollars to the city and to thousands of residents to settle lawsuits.
The first WHAS reporters to the scene that morning were Rick Redman and Jeffrey Hutter. In the video, they remembered it all with us this week
So how did the hexane ignite? A spark from a woman’s car as she was driving over a sewer cap that morning triggered the blast.
You can watch our entire interviews, here, with both Rick and Jeff.
