FREDERICKTOWN, Mo. (KFVS) – Some residents are staying out of their homes tonight as the Environmental Protection Agency monitors air quality near Critical Mineral Recovery.

“I saw the black cloud as if covering the sun and instinct kicked in. I knew right away what was going on,” said Bethany Atherton.

Bethany Atherton describes what she and her three daughters saw Wednesday afternoon when The critical minerals recovery plant exploded near her house.

Atherton and her husband Joseph return to their property on Thursday.

Bethany said she took her children and went straight to her mother’s house after it happened.

“I left the location as quickly as possible because I didn’t take any chances. I mean, given what the plume of smoke looked like from the aerial photos, etc., even inside our house if there was smoke coming in and I can’t imagine that situation,” Atherton said.

Kathy McDaniel and her husband, Dave, lived right next door to the plant in recent years.

“I heard a loud bang and I heard the guy scream and it freaked me out,” McDaniel said.

She said her home was filled with thick black smoke when it happened.

“I was choking and so I had to try and struggle to get dressed so I could get out of the house and that’s what I did,” McDaniel said. “And then I made sure all my neighbors were gone and I was the last one out of here.”

Wayne James and his wife live across the street from the battery factory. He said what his initial reaction was to the explosion.

“That was the end of our house and the end of the whole neighborhood, and hopefully not any people,” James said.

He wonders what this might mean for his property now and if he wants to sell in the future.

“But people will be fed up. You know how to put something that was a huge fire, huge explosions,” James said. “And I could understand that, but nobody’s buying it, we’re going to stay.”

According to Al Watkins, the lawyer for the recovery of critical mineralsoperations were suspended at the facility. But he says all 75 workers at the plant will continue to receive their wages.

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