So this afternoon the Chevron Richmond Refinery here in the Bay Area explodes and the plume looks like a tornado. Big shout out to activist/ poet Drew Dellinger of Planetize the Movement who captured the picture above and a bunch more as things unfolded..You can see more of those impressive photos HERE .
What’s most disturbing about this incident is that BART service to El Cerrito Plaza, El Cerrito Del Norte and Richmond stations are suspended.. and we’re told that toll takers at San Rafael bridge were evacuated. Emergency workers told people in Richmond, San Pablo,El Cerrito and surrounding cities to stay indoors and tape up windows to shield themselves from Toxins..Local hospitals have treated more than 200 people who have respiratory problems.. All this is going on and here’s the uninformative press release that Chevron releases on twitter and on their website…Sounds like they borrowed a page from BP in terms of not owning up to the damage they caused. .It’ll be interesting to see what politician gets pressured or rewarded to come around and tell us what a great company Chevron is after the dust of this tragedy settles
Statement on Chevron Richmond Refinery Incident
August 6th, 2012. 19:50 PT.
A fire started at our 4 Crude Unit at 6:15 pm today. At this time we do not have details about the cause of the incident. All employees have been safely accounted for and there are no injuries.
We have comprehensive plans and procedures in place to respond to situations like the one we are facing. We are working with all appropriate local authorities.
We will take all measures necessary to provide for the safety and security of our facilities and the surrounding community.
We are responding to this incident as quickly as we can and are deploying highly trained personnel to assess and manage the situation.
We will not speculate on the cause of this incident. Our priority right now is containing the fire and protecting the health and safety of our employees and community.
We will provide updates as more information can be confirmed.
Someone just posted up and environmental report regarding Chevron… Its worth reading to get a better understanding as to whats going on… http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/sherman.html
This just in as we suspected.. Chevron will be using this fire as rationale to raise gas prices
Davey D's Hip Hop Corner 
re: We will not speculate on the cause
I bet if someone outside of Chevron started it, they’d be all over it trying to gin up public outrage.
I assume that statement means it’s Chevron’s fault and they don’t want anyone to talk about that.
how did this happen