Tangipahoa Parish Declares Emergency After Smitty Supply Explosion in Roseland; Agencies Deploy for Cleanup and Testing

The Tangipahoa Parish Council voted unanimously Aug. 25 to declare the Aug. 21 explosion and fire at Smitty Supply in Roseland an emergency and authorized the parish president to seek emergency grant funding to cover unbudgeted response costs.

President Miller, who presented a timeline of the response, said the first alarm sounded a little before 1 a.m. Friday and Fire District 1 responded immediately. He described a large multiagency response, including foam operations by US Fire & Pump, and said the evacuation area was initially expanded to a one-mile radius for safety. "The fire destroyed much property, put over 400 workers at Smitty's out of work, resulting in the evacuation of residents and businesses within 1 mile of disaster site," the chair read when introducing the resolution.

Miller described the logistics of firefighting at the site: US Fire & Pump ran long water lines and set up foam operations that worked for hours; by late Saturday crews believed the blaze was roughly 90% contained. He said federal and state agencies — EPA, Louisiana DEQ and Louisiana State Police HAZMAT among them — joined local responders and that the parish was coordinating ongoing environmental monitoring and public information.

On environmental testing, Miller said DEQ air monitoring "has not picked up anything that wasn't safe" and reported initial soot results had been reviewed verbally by an LDH toxicologist and were "below any danger levels," although formal reports were pending. He cautioned residents to avoid ingesting or playing with collected soot and to wash skin, clothing and vehicles.

Miller also described water containment measures: "There are 5,900 feet of boom put in the river at 14 different locations," he said, noting the booms are containing material for vacuum removal but are non-absorbent and that preliminary assessments indicated visual contamination but not necessarily severe chemical harm. He said limited fish kills were reported (small, localized counts).

The council also heard that the Louisiana workforce commission deployed a mobile resource bus to help displaced employees and that parish staff would post links to air and soot test results when formal reports are available.

The resolution to declare an emergency and request assistance was added to the agenda by motion of Mister Wells and seconded by Miss Hyde and carried on a roll-call vote recorded in the minutes as passing unanimously.

Council members praised the response. Several noted the parish Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and local emergency management performed strongly, and members thanked school officials who sheltered and reunited evacuated students.

Next steps: parish officials said formal laboratory reports for soot and water testing were pending and would be posted publicly when available; the parish president was authorized to pursue emergency grants and funding to cover response and recovery costs.