Almost lost Apex this time

Let's see, now. There has been a church, a college, a police station and now a town.

Those are some of the places I have been thrown out of or denied admission to.

The latest incident occurred last week when, as any intrepid journalist would, I jumped into the dudemobile and raced over to Apex about 2 a.m. to see what had made the TV stations pre-empt Letterman, Leno et al. for round-the-clock coverage.

Turns out chemicals stored by EQ Industrial Services caught fire and forced thousands of residents to flee.

With a mix of hand-rubbing glee and apprehension, I approached the town, only to be told, to "back it on up, turn it around" or words to that effect by a cop who prevented me from entering.

Don't tell my boss, but I was grateful. The sky had already turned an unnatural color from the flames and smoke, and the town manager had said he was not sending any more officers to warn people foolish enough to walk in the smoke while trying to get a closer sniff.

Putting oneself at risk for a story is something to be undertaken cautiously. What if, for instance, it turned out that the smoke from EQ caused your offspring to come out with three eyes or made you take a liking to Kenny G songs?

I obediently turned back, but even before I learned that an EQ plant in Michigan had blown up last year, the words of poet Gil Scott-Heron's apocalyptic song "We Almost Lost Detroit" played over and over on my mental jukebox.

Referring to a nuclear plant near-meltdown in 1966, Scott-Heron sang words that, to Apex residents, might ring true 40 years later:

And what would Karen Silkwood say if she was still alive?

That when it comes to people's safety,

money wins out every time.

Silkwood was the nuclear facility technician and '70s-era folk heroine who blew the whistle on safety violations in the nuclear industry. She died suspiciously in 1974, and Meryl Streep played her in a movie.

Apex residents, understandably, hope EQ won't rebuild, as it has pledged to do. Considering that the company employs 25 people, chances are great that the residents will learn that Scott-Heron was right: Money wins out every time.

Whom, however, should residents blame for the white elephant in their midst: the industrial companies that were at the present site long before many of its neighboring residences were even built (the EQ site was once considered on the edge of town), or town officials who allowed homes to sprout in its toxic shadow?

While the building's original unobtrusive appearance seemed calculated to deflect attention, EQ could make the next one look like the Taj Mahal and residents would still get the heebie-jeebies whenever they passed it:

It stands out on a highway

like a Creature from another time.

It inspires the babies' questions,

"What's that?"

For their mothers as they ride.

But no one stopped to think about the babies

or how they would survive,

and we almost lost Detroit

this time.

And Apex, too.