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Nearly three dozen other people were either transported to
hospitals or treated at the scene, Harris County Sheriff Ed
Gonzalez said. Hours after the leak began, Gonzalez said the
area was still unsafe for investigators to enter and that
officials may not be able to get inside until Friday.
The plant is operated by Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil
company, and located in the suburb of Deer Park.
Gonzalez said that the gas release happened during work on a
flange at the facility, which is part of a cluster of oil
refineries and plants that makes Houston the nation's
petrochemical heartland.
Pemex said in a statement that investigations were underway and
that operations had been “proactively halted” at two units with
the aim of mitigating the impact.
City officials issued a shelter-in-place order but lifted it
hours later after air monitoring showed no risk to the
surrounding community, Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton said.
Hydrogen sulfide is a foul-smelling gas can be toxic at high
levels.
“Other than the smell, we have not had any verifiable air
monitoring to support that anything got outside the facility,”
Mouton said.
Television news crews showed multiple ambulances and emergency
vehicles at the scene. Gonzalez had originally posted on the
social platform X that one person was transported to a hospital
by helicopter, but officials later said at a news conference
that no one was airlifted.
The leak caused the second shelter-in-place orders in Deer Park
in the span of weeks. Last month, a pipeline fire that burned
for four days forced surrounding neighborhoods to evacuate.
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