Marysville (WWJ) -- A Monday morning explosion and fire at a Marysville welding supply company left one person hospitalized and shook the ground for miles.
The fire at South Park Welding started about 8:20 a.m. Monday in the paint room.
Speaking live on WWJ, Marysville Police Chief Tim Buelow said the injured person was a worker at the business and he's in stable condition.
"He walked out and met the ambulance out front and he was taken to a hospital in Port Huron," Buelow said. The man was then transported to a Detroit hospital.
Buelow said the worker was removing a valve from an acetylene tank when it exploded and started the building on fire. Shortly after firefighters arrived on scene there were several secondary explosions with various tanks in the building. Buelow said the explosions sent shrapnel flying into the air and roadway.
"It's a pretty dangerous situation for our firefighters...a couple times they had to back off because of the secondary explosions," Buelow said.
Marysville fire chief Thomas Konik said his guys had to deal with more than the fire.
"We were dealing with shrapnel from the vessels at the scene we had to pull everyone back and get people out."
Firefighters from Port Huron, Port Huron Township and Kimball Township helped the Marysville Fire Department control the blaze.
People as far as four and five miles away from the company, which is located on Gratiot Blvd south of Port Huron, felt the explosion.
"Several large explosions and I thought maybe it was gunshots," Cindy Ellison said. She was eating breakfast about a mile from the plant when the first explosion happened.
"Boom, boom, boom," was how Pamela Johnson described what she heard. Johnson said at first she thought it was a garbage truck, but later found out it was the welding company.
Bob Edwards lives a couple blocks from the plant. He said his house shook so bad, pictures were falling off the walls.
" I mean it shook so bad, I never felt anything like that...nothing," Edwards said.
The police chief says people in the area were being told to stay inside their homes. A few businesses and homes near the plant were evacuated. Students at Cleveland Elementary School and Grant Education Center in the Port Huron School District were evacuated as a precaution.
South Park is one of only two manufacturing facilities in Michigan for acetylene tanks.
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