A shelter-in-place order has been issued for an entire county in metro Atlanta after a Sunday fire at a chemical plant. The order was extended to the whole of Rockdale County, which has a population of 93,570, on Monday after chlorine was detected in the air, NBC News reports. Thousands of people near the BioLab plant in Conyers, around 25 miles east of downtown Atlanta, were ordered to evacuate after the fire, reports the AP. Officials say people sheltering in place should "turn the air conditioning off and keep windows and doors shut" to avoid the harmful irritant.
A haze and chemical smell were reported in several metro Atlanta counties on Monday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Some school systems canceled outdoor activities. Georgia's Emergency Management Agency said Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency is monitoring the air for "chlorine and related compounds," NBC News reports. The Georgia agency said "chemical levels are unlikely cause harm to most people."
Rockdale County Fire Chief Marian McDaniel said Sunday that the fire began Sunday after a sprinkler malfunction caused "a mixture with a water-reactive chemical." "We've been firefighting with water, but the water is also aggravating the chemical," McDaniel said. In Suwanee, northeast of Atlanta, Arynne Johnson told the AP that she encountered a haze that "slapped you in the face" when she went outside to walk her dogs Monday morning. "I used to work at a water park, and it felt like walking into a pool house," she said. (More chemical plant stories.)
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