Community Corner

Aux Sable Liquid Products Power Outage Causes Huge Flame

The burnoff at Aux Sable Liquid Products could be seen Sunday night from the sky above the plant.

An unusual 911 call came in to police Sunday night when someone aboard an airliner thought a section of the Des Plaines conservation area was on fire. There was no such fire, and in fact, what the pilot was seeing was the flame at Aux Sable Liquid Products.

"It's the largest that I've ever personally seen," Channahon Deputy Chief Jeff Wold said.

recieved only a couple calls about the size of the flame, and neighboring said they did not receive any. However, residents were talking about the size of it and how it was lighting up their yards on social media sites Sunday night. There was even a rumor floating as far away as Oswego that a plant blew up.

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On the Channahon-Minooka Patch Facebook page Monday, residents shared the following comments.

"In Morris, you almost did not need headlights while driving," Julz Blum said.

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Traci Bartz Kelleher was also in Morris.

"We were sitting in a booth in Chili's in Morris and could clearly see it," she posted. "We thought it was a truck fire."

Closer to home, Carrie Blahut, who lives in Hunter's Crossing, said the flame lit up her whole house. And that flame came with its own rumbling as well.

"I live in McKinley Oaks and you could hear it at my house ... sounded like a jet engine," Chris Trivisonno said.

What really happened was that the plant lost power. ComEd needed to do maintenance on one of the two power lines going into the plant and although that transition is supposed to be seamless, the plant lost power and the automated safety features of the plant caused the flare.

"We have two main power supplies or lines that come into the plant," Aux Sable Liquid Products spokesman Scott Seibert said. "ComEd had to do maintenance to switch from one to the other. We lost power to some critical pieces of equiptment in the plant and that’s what causes the flaring event."

When that happens, it costs the plant money and uses up gas that could be used to heat homes.

"We sacrifice a lot in production for a very brief outage," Seibert said.

Aux Sable Liquid Products produces ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline.

"The plant is designed for over protection," Seibert said. "When certain pieces of equipment go down, (there is a) pressure release. When compressors or pumps go down its all automated; It’s a safety feature."


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