The Weatherford Police Department said around 500 people were evacuated from town, and five firefighters sustained chemical burns in their airways, following an anhydrous ammonia leak.
Authorities say the leak originated from a tanker truck parked behind the Holiday Inn Express near Main Street in Weatherford. Residents were cleared to return home Thursday morning after being evacuated Wednesday night.
Rachael Merchant, an evacuee in a neighborhood near Washington Street and Davis Avenue, told News 4 she and her family left their homes around 12:15 a.m. Shortly after evacuating, Merchant said she started to feel sick from the toxic fumes in the air.
โIt started out with just tightness of the chest, hard to breathe, a little bit of eye burning, nothing too chaotic and crazy, but it feels more like you have bronchitis,โ Merchant said. Another neighbor, Brayden Mowles, said his family left at approximately 10:00 p.m., and he later left town after receiving the evacuation call at work. โItโs just crazy how it can happen so fast, Mowles added.
Firefighters and several agencies responded with an โall hands on deckโ approach. Chief Corey Selman with the Weatherford Police Department said, โWhen they got here, they were met in the parking lot with victims coming out already. PD was on scene as well really quickly, and started helping us transport people out of the area.โ
Authorities say around 36 people were taken to the Weatherford Regional Hospital, with several others rushed to the Oklahoma City Metro Hospitals. A spokesperson from SSM St. Anthony told News 4, seven were being treated at their hospital. An Integris spokesperson said five are being treated at hospitals in their network. So far, no one has died from the incident.
