At least 11 workers were injured in explosion at Louisville company

Dylan Lovan and Rebecca Reynolds
| Associated press

Louisville, Ky. – At least 11 workers were taken to hospitals Tuesday after an explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, company that produces natural dyes for food and beverages.

The explosion, which occurred at Givaudan Sense Color around 3 p.m., smashed windows and blew doors in nearby homes and businesses. Responding firefighters rescued and evacuated many people from the building, including some with life-threatening injuries, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said in a statement Tuesday evening.

News video footage showed an industrial building with its center section burning and partially collapsing. The cause remained unknown.

The University of Louisville Hospital treated seven of the injured and two of them were in critical condition, Dr. Jason Smith, chief medical officer of University of Louisville Health. Hospital officials activated decontamination procedures for the victims, a process in which they remove their clothing and any chemicals on it and then take them for evaluation and treatment, Smith said. Other patients were taken to Baptist East Hospital, Greenberg said.

A spokesperson for Givaudan did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday evening. No one answered the phone at the company’s office in Louisville, and a man who answered at the office in Port Washington, Wisconsin, declined to comment.

Greenberg said officials spoke with workers at the plant. “They initially made it clear that everything was normal when the explosion happened,” he said.

Greenberg said officials took into account everyone who worked at the plant at the time of the explosion.

Louisville Fire Chief Brian O’Neill said air monitoring began immediately after the explosion and that “nothing at this point has ever indicated any type of chemical issues in the air throughout this entire region.” O’Neill also said firefighters “don’t yet know exactly what types of spills may be occurring or are ongoing,” but he urged residents to remain calm.

Louisville Metro Emergency Services had urged people within a mile of the business to shelter in place, but that order was lifted about two hours after the explosion.

The Louisville Fire Department led the investigation as of Tuesday evening with assistance from state and federal partners. A reconstruction team from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was en route to Louisville to help determine the cause of the explosion.

The blast shattered several windows in a nearby business district, and many were boarded up as night fell.

Steve Parobek was cleaning up the glass around the fourplex apartment he lives in, just a block from the factory. His kitchen window was blown out by the blast while he was working.

“You never really expect this to happen in your neighborhood,” Parobek said outside his apartment.

He said he came home to find his cat safe and used two pizza boxes and some duct tape to cover his window as temperatures steadily dropped Tuesday evening. The explosion blew out ten windows from the building.

“I was lucky; “I only had one,” he said.

Patrick Livers lives in a neighborhood directly across from the factory’s railroad tracks. He was at work when his mother, who had picked up his children from school and taken them home, called him via FaceTime to say his house had been damaged in the explosion.

“I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ Then she showed me the video. I thought, ‘Oh, you’re kidding me,'” he said.

Livers said no one was home at the time of the explosion. He said the explosion blew out windows all over his street.

“The house is still there. It’s just structural damage. If it’s on the wall, it’s on the floor,” he said. “All the neighbors’ windows were blown out and doors were blown in. It looked like a small tornado had hit the house.”

In April 2003, an explosion at the same site killed a worker at a DD Williamson & Co caramel color factory. Givaudan bought the factory from DD Williamson in 2021.

Federal investigators determined that a pressure relief valve on a tank had been removed when the company moved the tank to its Louisville plant in 1989. The tank exploded because there was no pressure relief valve, according to a Chemical Safety Board report.

The blast killed Louis C. Perry, 44, of Louisville, who investigators say was standing next to the 2,200-gallon tank when it exploded. Local residents were also evacuated after the explosion.

Associated Press journalists John Raby and Bruce Schreiner contributed to this report.