Bad Weather Causes Damage At Western Refining

The flare coming from Western Refining in South-Central El Paso could be seen from Horizon City. It looked like a giant torch in the distance.

"That thing just kind of went up in flames and lit up the whole block. You could probably sit out here and play football. That's how well lit it was," said Oscar Lara.

"It was so hot. The flame was so high," said Mae Salgado.

Up close, the flames shooting out from the relief valve appeared to be more than 25 feet high. Western Refining officials said they had to start the flare after a compressor broke when the power went out for a few minutes.

"There are two things that were damaged, the sensor then subsequently the compressor bearing itself. What damaged the bearing was the abrupt shutdown of the compressor by the power outage," said Victor Rueda with Western Refining.

Rueda said the flare coming out of Western Refining is a mixture of hydro-carbon gases, and is in no way dangerous to the public.

Rueda said it's standard procedure to release the pressure by burning the gas. This usually happens in emergency cases, unexpected weather events, or during maintenance. Otherwise, there would be major consequences.

"We'd have to shut down the units completely, or we'd have an uncontrollable build up in pressure, two bad things," said Rueda.

Residents who live near the plant said the bright light coming from the flare isn't the worst part. They said they barely got any sleep Friday night because of the noise coming from the plant, which almost sounds like an airplane.

"I've been living here for quite some time and I'm not scared of it. It's just very annoying because of the noise. It's making me go crazy," said Salgado.