After the Operations Manager announced the release on the Millard facility intercom,
three Millard employees went onto the roof in an attempt to mitigate the leak by closing
manual valves that supplied ammonia to the blast freezer. All other Millard employees
evacuated the facility to a location upwind from the ammonia release. Millard employees
on the roof closed valves and reported the release secured by 1:20 pm, about 4 hours after
the initial release. Ammonia released within the blast freezer due to the failed evaporator
coil contaminated 8 million pounds of poultry and packaging material. Industrial hygiene
technicians contracted for post-incident remediation recorded ammonia concentrations as
high as 7,275 parts per million (ppm) in the contaminated blast freezer later that day