06/03/2024
By: K. Culbertson
Fire chief Michael Creech appeared at the Town Council work session this evening to update the Council on the situation at the Tysons feed mill on Bay Street. He noted that Tyson has requested they be able to take full control of the silo site where corn has been burning for at least three weeks in one of the cement silos. Creech said that officials from the company have laid out a plan for removing the waste and debris, including hiring a salvage company to do so, and Creech and the Incident Response Team (the Team) are confident that Tyson will be able to achieve the results they’ve outlined.
However, Creech also told the Council that the Tyson officials have been notified that they need to provide both morning and evening reports to the Team to identify the work to be done and then report what was accomplished during the day. He added that if Tyson is unable to maintain that level of communication and assurance that the work is being completed, that the Team is ready to move back in and ensure the health and safety of the Town and its citizens. Mayor-elect Simpson asked Creech again whether he felt the Tyson officials were willing to communicate effectively and possibly even have a public meeting to discuss the incident openly. Creech said he was expecting the first evening update “any moment now … and if that does not happen, we will insert ourselves back into the scene.” He added, “We’re trying to play nicely; however, I want to make sure we’re getting all of the information [available] and getting all of our questions answered, and all of the community’s questions answered. That is the priority right now. We’ll need to make sure that line of communication is still there.”
Town manager Rick Pollitt reiterated how important it was to have Chief Creech’s expertise and advocacy accessible during this incident, and said that the town continues to press Tyson to present an overview of what happened and what is planned to happen as the cleanup continues “until this process is completed.” He added “Tyson Is being very careful, as you would expect [from] a large corporation.”
Creech added that the objective is to provide an opportunity for the community to meet with Town officials, County officials, and Tyson officials to ask questions and hear all pertinent information at one time. But, he said that will likely not happen until an internal review process is complete.
” We do feel that the scene is safe and that the community is safe, but we also need to be able to ask questions” of the Tyson officials and their contractors.
Simpson asked about whether the Tyson officials have addressed the issue of demolition, at this point. Creech noted that they intend to take down the affected silo, using their salvage contractor, from the top down, meaning there hopefully won’t be any further implosion or explosion. But, it seems the first objective is to remove all of the corn still in the building .
As of 9:45pm, no further report has been made public by the Chief.
The Lower Shore Observer 