By Matt Pearce
January 9, 2014
Photo courtesy cedwvu.org
West Virginia’s governor declared a state of emergency for five counties Thursday after a chemical spill contaminated the Elk River, affecting tens of thousands of people and forcing schools and eateries to close.
Worried shoppers flooded into stores seeking bottled water after Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said on Twitter: “EMERGENCY: Do NOT use tap water for drinking, cooking, washing or bathing.”
By evening, many stores appeared to be running out.
The chemical leak came from the Freedom Industries coal treatment facility outsite Charleston, according to the Kanawha County Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.
[Update, 6:53 p.m. PST Jan. 9: The leak, which was first reported at 11:40 a.m., came from a 48,000-gallon storage tank, Tom Aluise, a spokesman for West Virginia’s department of environmental protection, told The Times. “All we know is that they discovered a hole in the tank, and material was leaking,” Aluise said. “How that hole got there, we don’t know.”