A chemical plant in Apex, NC has apparently exploded, causing over half of the town's population of 32,000 to evacuate. It's made the top story at CNN, as well as other news sources.

I went to school at Apex High, and know lots of people in the area. One of my family's good friends lives near the plant (1/4 to 1/2 of a mile), and she is unable to drive due to a disability. We haven't heard from her, so hopefully one of her friends came to pick her up to get her out of harm's way. There's apparently a toxic gas cloud over the city, so hopefully nothing bad will come of that. The current rain appears to be helping in that regard.

This entire event reminds me of a scene from The Simpsons (from episode 2F32, 'Round Springfield):

Lisa returns to KJAZZ with the album, and the DJ puts it on a turntable and hands her a radio. "Here, you can listen to it on this," he says, but as she walks away from the station, all she picks up is static. She sighs heavily, "I did the best I could, Bleeding Gums." Just then, a large cloud appears over the radio tower and lightning strikes it. Suddenly, the signal comes in clearly -- for Lisa, Homer at home, Abe at the Castle, and Wiggum in his patrol car. "Attention all units, attention all units, poison gas cloud heading for --" announces the dispatcher, but her voice is cut off by the jazz transmission. Wiggum approves until he passes out from a cloud of poison gas.