Officials in Toledo, Ohio, lifted a shelter-in-place order that had advised around 50,000 people to stay indoors Wednesday after a toxic chemical release sent a plume into the sky over the city just south of the Michigan border.
The city also reduced an evacuation order to a half-mile radius around the facility.
The incident began Tuesday night, when a 5,500 tank of glycidyl methacrylate ruptured and began leaking.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said the leak happened because of an error while the material was being transferred.
The city ordered people within a mile of the facility to evacuate, and later added a shelter-in-place order that covered tens of thousands of people in a 3-mile radius.
Travis Williams, who lives near the plant, said he and his girlfriend evacuated after they woke up in the middle of the night with the smell of burnt plastic and an eerie fog outside their home.
"I woke up choking in my sleep. My girlfriend, she gave me some water, and that’s when the alert came in," Williams said. "We looked outside and we couldn’t even see as far as our car."
“My skin was a little itchy and burning. My throat was a little irritated. My nose and eyes were irritated. I was having a slight headache, so we ended up going to the hospital," said Williams.
ProMedica, which operates hospitals and urgent care centers in the Toledo area, said it evaluated about 30 people who reported symptoms that might have been related to the leak. Most were treated and released, the health care provider said.
Health officials said the symptoms reported so far were primarily eye and throat irritation. Testing was ongoing to determine the chemical’s concentration in the air and whether it posed additional health risks.
The Wednesday shelter-in-place order reached across the state line into Michigan, where two school districts, Mason Consolidated Schools and Bedford Community Schools, closed for the day.
Authorities were still deciding how to handle the site of the chemical release Wednesday night.
Toledo Fire & Rescue hazardous materials personnel were "working with federal, state and local partners to monitor conditions, coordinate mitigation efforts, and evaluate next steps," the city said.
