Shelter-in-place lifted for residents of Hackberry

Hackberry, LA (KPLC) - A Saturday night thunderstorm set a blaze on two petroleum crude oil tanks in Hackberry.

“Yeah I got notified by the Cameron Parish Sheriff’s Office at about 10:30 last night [Saturday, April 15] that during that severe weather event that lightning had struck near the tankers was at first what the call was,” Danny Lavergne with Cameron OEP said. “They didn’t know if it was grass burning until they inspected it and realized the tankers were on fire.”

A one-mile radius near Sutton Circle was under a shelter-in-place Sunday as a plume of black smoke was seen rolling off two oil tanks.

“They figured it was 2 feet of oil deep in the tankers but that was incorrect information, found out later it was close to 9 feet,” Lavergne said.

Once the smoke started thickening Sunday morning, Lavergne said the precautionary shelter-in-place was issued.

“Precaution, it’s not an evacuation, you could go outside and it probably wouldn’t affect a lot of people but it could have, the wind could’ve changed but we don’t know,” Lavergne said.

No injuries have been reported.

The shelter-in-place was lifted at approximately 4:15 Sunday evening.

Copyright 2023 KPLC. All rights reserved.