***UPDATE*** Clay County Sheriff Chris Raveling says no employees of the elevator were in the area at the time and no injuries have been reported. The elevator held a mix of corn and soybeans but it was mostly empty at the time. Several homes in the area of the elevator were evacuated for a time as a precaution.
(Royal)– Fire and rescue crews are on the scene of a grain elevator explosion at Ag Partners in Royal. It happened around 3:20 pm this (Tues.) afternoon. KUOO news spoke a short time ago with Nick Laubenthal who lives in Royal and was home at the time of the blast…
“Well it sounded like jets were flying around town and then all of a sudden there was a big sonic boom and then a huge shock wave moved through town, and then I got up and got outside and was looking and seen smoke coming from the elevator. I drove down there and the whole side of the elevator had been blown out and the whole area where you load and dump it was blown apart and then all of the law enforcement and emergency vehicles showed up.”
There’s no immediate word of any injuries. Crews from Black Hills Energy are on the scene but it isn’t certain at all if natural gas played any role in the blast. Laubenthal says he couldn’t smell any gas where he was at…
“I couldn’t smell any gas but there was smoke coming from just about every place on the elevator. I don’t know if it was a after affect of the explosion or something’s on fire, but now the power company has killed the power to the town saying there’s a fire there, so I don’t know. They don’t want anybody around because there could be a secondary explosion.”
Laubenthal says the damage is significant and it’s impossible to get very close to the scene…
“You could see there’s concrete and re-bar laying all over the road. I don’t know how far that blew out. You couldn’t get close to it.”
Again this is a breaking story and we’ll have additional details as they become available.
Photos courtesy Nick Laubenthal
