Shook the Spot

Yo, It's . . . made this connection first, but as its not overheard, per se, he's not likely to be blogging it. And what is anything if it's not blogged these days?

A fire at a chemical storage plant in Apex, N.C., a suburb of Raleigh, produced a plume of toxic fumes that forced the evacuation of some 17,000 people from their homes in the middle of the night. (The Times)

It's the incarnation of Don DeLillo's Airborne Toxic Event in White Noise.

It appeared in the sky ahead of us and to the left, prompting us to lower ourselves in our seats, bend our heads for a clearer view, exclaim to each other in half finished phrases. It was the clear black billowing cloud, the airborne toxic event, lighted by the clear beams of seven army helicopters. They were tracking its windborned movement, keeping it in view. In every car, heads shifted, drivers blew their horns to alert others, faces appeared in side windows, expressions set in tones of outlandish wonderment. (White Noise)

And it's going down in Apex, North Carolina, which is totally a DeLillo name.

The plant was known to contain pesticides and chemicals incorporating chlorine, a toxic substance that was used in early poison-gas weapons in World War I. Thirteen police officers and one firefighter were taken to a hospital and treated for respiratory distress after they inhaled fumes from the fire; all were later released. Some of the policeman also suffered chemical burns to their faces, the mayor said. (The Times)

I guess it's sucks living in a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina.

"The radio calls it a feathery plume," he said. "But it's not a plume."
"What is it?"
"Like a shapeless growing thing. A dark black breathing thing of smoke. Why do they call it a plume?"
"Air time is valuable. They can't go into long tortured descriptions. Have they said what kind of chemical it is?"
"It's called Nyodene Derivative or Nyodene D. It was in a movie we saw in school on toxic wastes. These videotaped rats."
"What does it cause?"
"The movie wasn't sure what it does to humans. Mainly it was rats growing urgent lumps."
"That's what the movie said. What does the radio say?"
"At first they say skin irritation and sweaty palms. But now they say nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath."
"This is human nausea we're talking about. Not rats."
"Not rats," he said. (White Noise)

It's my favorite book, by the way.

Nevertheless, town and state officials said the rain that started falling early today and continued through the morning had done much to scrub the air of the pollutants emitted by the fire. A state agency that sampled the air near the plant said that nothing “alarming” had been found. (The Times)

Word.

"That was the Stovers," she said. "They spoke directly with the weather center outside Glassboro. They're not calling a feathery plume anymore."
"What are they calling it?"
"A black billowing cloud."
"That's a little more accurate, which means they're coming to grips with the thing. Good." (White Noise)

See some of you soon!

“You can’t put foam or water on it,” Mayor Weatherly said of the fire. “That just exacerbates it.” (The Times)

TSoBFBW . . .

"It doesn't cause nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, like they said before."
"What does it cause?"
"Heart palpitations and a sense of deja vu."
"Deja vu?"
"It affects the false part of the human memory or whatever. That's not all. They're not calling it the black billowing cloud anymore."
"What are they calling it?"
He looked at me carefully.
"The airborne toxic event." (White Noise)