Danvers goes boom

Jack Pattishall posts photos taken about 10 minutes after the initial explosion at a Danvers ink plant (including the one above, re-posted with permission):

I woke up to a room filled with red flashing light. I heard the initial explosion and wasn't sure what was going on. The explosions that followed as well as the house shaking got me out of bed, running for my camera. I knew something was going on! ...

Ryan posts photos of the fire, which destroyed several homes and commercial buildings, but didn't kill anybody:

... We spoke to the Salem police and they said there were reports of people hearing the explosion as far away as Lynn, very near Boston. It was tremendously loud and shook our building very hard - much worse than anything I've ever experienced. ...

Photos showing Danvers illuminated by the fire.

Bostondave posts video of the fire:

Nothing like getting shaken out bed by an explosion at 3am and then seeing a fireball out the window...

Mike posts a photo from about 3/4 of a mile away:

... I went out, around 3am, to get a better view and the odor (our house is about a mile away) was awful. We have been told that there is no health hazard (ya right). However, it could have been worse. There is a propane distribution company across the street and it suffered only minimal damage. And no one was killed. If this happened in the summer, people living on their boats would not have been as fortunate. ...

Chelsea Peterson, in Beverly: Nothing like waking up in sheer terror.

Aaron Schiffer started posting about five minutes after the first explosion:

Ok - about five minutes ago, the house rattled and my bed shook, and woke me up, and there wasn't any crash, just an earth tremor for a brief moment. It couldn't have been anything in our apt. otherwise I would have heard a crash, but it was just an earthy rumble, so my first thought was the boiler, so I looked out the window to see if there was some indication of fire, but there was none - except for some smoke over the horizon to the west, which was kind of weird, but anyway, i checked the basement and our boiler and everything were fine.

I was outside anyway and I was hearing sirens, and i thought they were coming our way, until I saw them head on down Rantoul toward Bank Of America, and I was expecting some sort of building collapse, to register that kind of seismic activity, but actually the response vehicles were just responding to an alarm on the bank - the boom had set off the bank alarm. ...

He checks back in 40 minutes later:

... I got to a spot where the view was unobstructed, and it was basically pluming and belching out of somewhere across the river, behind the hill that hides residential Danvers or west Beverly. People are saying a power plant exploded, which would be in line with me feeling it nearly mile away, and would be in line with the ginormous tongues of flame and smoke licking up out of that region. ...

Ladyhawke reports:

I'm in Danvers - thought my windows were going to break, it was so severe! I've counted a good 18 emergency vehicles go by the major roadway visible from my window (Water St) and can see huge flames ...

Dan Kennedy lives two miles away:

... First, the blast was unlike anything I'd heard before - loud and deep, as though a bomb had gone off, which I guess is not far from what actually happened. Mrs. Media Nation assumed it was the "snow thunder" that had been predicted, but it sure didn't sound like thunder to me. Still, we couldn't imagine that part of a neighborhood had just been wiped out.

Second, it is incredibly good news that no one was killed or seriously hurt. Now there's something to be grateful for on Thanksgiving. ...

Infatuation reports from Beverly:

... so at 3:05 am everyone basically in Beverly was awoken by an ENOURMOUS eplosion. We're talking like, I thought terroritsts were attacking the house. So I go into my parents room obviously all "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WE MUST LEAVE! WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" My parents heard it too (who couldnt its a huge explosion). Seriously, it sounded like the Salem Powerplant went up in a firey death. We look out the window and there is smoke and fire and flames in the distance and we concluced that the Danvers Port Yatch Club is on fire because a boat exploded. ...

Ifm felt it 15 miles away:

... I don't think I was conscious of the first explosion. I believe I felt a secondary explosion because I was awake for awhile before the house rumbled. ...

Kirby lives a few miles away:

Early this morning, around 2:45 AM, my wife and I were woken up by a thunderous boom that shook the house. We both jumped out of bed, looked out the window, but all was quiet. I thought maybe the explosion was downstairs in the basement so I went down to check it out. My wife turned on the TV and tuned in to local Boston news channels but there was nothing about an explosion. No breaking news. Nothing. Finally I went outside to see if I could tell what happened. Still not luck.

We were up for almost an hour worried that something bad had happened. It was hard to go back to sleep. For us, being from New York City, it was strange how quiet the streets were. It seems the explosion did not wake any of our neighbors. ...

Whiteshirtkyd gets an early start on Thanksgiving since Danvers closed all its schools today. Ditto for Pooq45:

... I've had a snow day, a rain day, and even a cold day, but NEVER an explosion day. ...

Kylegirl reports:

This morning, two hours after I came in to work, my boss arrived and said, "Is your family all OK?" And I was like, "Is there a reason why they would not be OK?" ...

She calls and finds her parents, who live near the plant, were both OK.

More:
Report from the blast zone - and video.

Channel 5 has live coverage. So does Channel 25.

More MSM coverage:
Boston.com: Explosion rocks Danvers, several hurt, none seriously
Boston Herald: Explosions, followed by huge fire, rock North Shore
Channel 4: Chemical Plant Explosion Rocks Danvers Overnight