Evacuated Residents Upset with Dow Short Notice

FREEPORT, Texas - When you make your home a stones throw from a major petrochemical complex, it's hardly an enormous surprise when time comes to pack-up and pull out. Pipeline hazardous mat workers are in, and about 60 households are out.

"I have to leave today," says resident Reyna Lopez.

Lopez has lived 22 years in the neighborhood near the Dow underground pipeline leak of TDI, a powerful and potentially hazardous component of polyurethane.

While packing for the evacuation, Lopez got so distracted she locked herself out of the house. Her husband Felix, who makes their living in the petrochemical plants was far less flustered and wouldn't think of leaving for good.

"We're okay, my life is here," he says with a smile.

Down the quiet streets near the ruptured line others were far more disturbed by notification delays and the domestic disruption of the forced departure.

"It's just the inconvenience and then I worry about security once I leave,” says Don Matthews, who says he's been living in Freeport "since before Pearl Harbor."

"Are they telling the truth ?", asks Leslie Diaz, a 26-year resident. "Have we been breathing the chemicals for the past three or four days and nobody knows about it?," she says.

Officials with Dow called the evacuation “precautionary.”

"We don't expect any exposure, we've not seen any emissions from the site so far," says Gary Hockstra, General Manager of Dow operations in Freeport.

Motels will be home for effected residents until Dow extracts and repairs the underground pipe.

Evacuating resident Jose Gonzalez says folks in Freeport know this temporary displacement is the kind of thing that comes with the territory.

"We have to make a living and this is the way we survive,” says the veteran plant worker.

Optimists are hopeful they'll be home by Halloween, but those who have been through this before aren’t holding their breath.

Dow's Hockstra says he hopes to have the repair job complete within three to five days.