Dangerous Chemical Forces Evacuation

Some people in one Northeastern Oklahoma apartment complex are left homeless. Officials say a mysterious chemical is to blame and it's made some of them sick.<br/>It's called chloroethanol and

Wednesday, August 1st 2007, 9:24 pm

By: News On 6

Some people in one Northeastern Oklahoma apartment complex are left homeless. Officials say a mysterious chemical is to blame and it's made some of them sick.
It's called chloroethanol and Hazmat teams found it in a Chouteau complex Tuesday. The News On 6's Latoya Silmon reports it is very toxic and it's already made at least six people very sick.

Haley's Village Apartments is home to dozens of people, now the Red Cross has moved in.

"We've got people in wheel chairs and families, and they could have done something at least to get some families somewhere," complex resident Stephanie Wishard said. "We shouldn't have been the ones to call the American Red Cross, it should have been them."

Instead residents say their apartment complex isn't much help. All they know is something in this building made them sick.

"On Friday it was a headache, and then I started having chest pains, and burning in my lungs, and I have asthma attacks," said apartment resident Evelyn Pulley.

"My daughter got sick. She's about 19-months old, going on 20, and she had started having a runny nose and was grabbing her ears," Wishard said.

Problems they say began after they noticed a foul smell in the air last Thursday.

"It was a sweet ether smell," said Pulley.

The city says Claremore's Hazmat team found chloroethanol, a pesticide inside the building. They say it's highly toxic and deadly.

"We were fortunate, very fortunate I think," Chouteau's Mayor Jerry Floyd said. "We could have lost some people."

The apartment complex wouldn't talk to The News On 6, but the city says it has learned that the apartments do not use chloroethanol to kill bugs, so they don't know how it got into the complex. Authorities do say chloroethanol is highly toxic and it could have been brought into the residence accidentally, possibly from a field or a local farmer, because you have to have a license to buy it.

Some residents told The News On 6 they are already looking into legal options, because at least six people were sent to the hospital because of the chemical, and they say thatâ€™s just not right. In the meantime, a cleanup crew from Oklahoma City will be in Chouteau Thursday to try and cleanup the contamination.

Watch the video: Contamination Forces Evacuations