After finally breaching what seemed to be an “Iron Curtain” of silence among current and former employees of Carbide Industries on Bells Lane, Insider Louisville has been able to speak with two people who have direct knowledge about Monday’s incident in which two men were killed in an explosion.
A former Carbide Industries employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Insider Louisville on Wednesday, “It is my understanding they had plans to overhaul that furnace within two to three years. They should not have waited.”
The former employee then added with emphasis: “The place was a ticking time bomb. They constantly had smaller explosions there, you just didn’t hear about them on the news. Maybe if profits were put aside for a minute, those poor souls would still be alive today.”
Carbide Industries is North America’s largest producer of calcium carbide products, according to the company’s website
Calcium carbide is the primary source of acetylene gas used in metal fabrication.
The building Carbide operates out of is an old one, having been among the very first to begin operating in the Rubbertown area, an area that was to become the largest producer of synthetic rubber in the world.
Old facilities like the Carbide plant are inherently more hazardous than modern ones.
Carbide Industries’ Louisville location takes raw materials and turns them into calcium carbide by means of super-heating all the ingredients inside of a furnace in which temperatures can reach 3800 degrees Fahrenheit.
One insider told me that Carbide always was and continued to be a “filthy, nasty place to work” up until Monday’s explosion.
Time will tell if the sources are correct in their assessment of the situation. Until then, we should call on all traditional media outlets to stop repeating what they are told in press releases and use their resources to get to the bottom of the story.
