Toxic Tuesday: Iowa Time Machine July 16, 1985

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On July 16, 1985, Cedar Rapids residents hoped to return home after “Toxic Tuesday” had turned the sky black. What began as routine demolition work at an abandoned sewage treatment plant on A and Burlington streets Southwest on July 15 became a twenty‑plus‑hour chemical fire that sent a plume of hydrogen chloride gas thousands of feet into the air and forced more than 5,000, and likely close to 10,000, residents from their homes.

Built in 1934, during an era when state and federal officials were becoming increasingly alarmed about raw sewage flowing directly into waterways, the Cedar Rapids sewage treatment plant was designed to bring a growing industrial city into line with emerging public health standards. With the city’s population and industry expanding, the facility more than doubled in size in 1959 to process waste from about 90,000 residents and some 500 industrial users, a sign of the mid‑century faith that engineering could keep pace with urban growth. In 1969, city leaders tried to manage odors by placing 27 concrete‑reinforced Styrofoam domes over the filter beds, a solution that made sense at the time but would later provide the combustible material that fueled “Toxic Tuesday.” When heavy snow and ice caused two domes to collapse in 1979, Public Improvements Commissioner Richard Phillips announced that they would not be replaced, since the plant was to be phased out once a new facility near Bertram went online in January 1980.

United Wrecking Co. of Perry, Iowa, won the low bid for tearing down the complex in March 1985, and by mid‑July, crews had dismantled 25 of the 27 domes. Around 2:30 p.m. on Monday, July 15, sparks from a worker’s cutting torch ignited the polyvinyl chloride plastic media inside one of the last domes, sending thick black smoke filled with hydrogen chloride gas over south Cedar Rapids and into parts of Johnson County. Firefighters arrived to find hydrants near the plant disconnected and had to pump water from the Cedar River; soon, they realized that water was making the problem worse, since the gas could form acid on contact and cause severe eye, throat, and lung irritation. A crash truck from the airport sprayed foam without success, and the strategy shifted to smothering the blaze with loads of dirt hauled from the landfill and dropped by crane, a joint effort by Coonrod Wrecker & Crane Service and Gee Grading that finally brought the fire under control about 22 hours after it began.

During those tense hours, Cedar Rapids and surrounding communities lived through a full‑scale disaster drill brought to life. Law enforcement officers sealed off main thoroughfares and even closed Interstate 380; large employers were asked to shut down for the day; and more than 5,000 people over roughly 23 square miles, with later estimates reaching around 10,000, were ordered from their homes to Red Cross shelters and other relief sites. Residents of south‑side neighborhoods like Rompot, elderly tenants at Hawthorne Hills Apartments, students and staff at schools pressed into service as shelters, campers at Lake Macbride State Park, and even patients in a Mount Vernon care center joined the flow of people seeking safe air. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad visited the scene and declared a state of emergency in Linn County, while The Gazette’s July 16 edition printed dramatic photos that fixed the “Toxic Tuesday” name in local memory. #Iowa #OTD #History #Disaster #Toxic