Pfizer Manufacturing Plant Heavily Damaged by Tornado

Pfizer officials are determining the employee and product outcomes after a tornado damaged their pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in North Carolina Wednesday.

The EF-3 rated tornado started just west of Nashville, traveling northeast through Red Oak, crossing I-95 north of US 64 before plowing into the huge plant.

Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone said he had “reports of 50,000 pallets of medicine that are strewn across the facility and damaged through the rain and the wind.”

The tornado swept the countryside and plant near Rocky Mount, located 60 miles east of Raleigh, North Carolina. No serious injuries were reported.

“The Dortches-Battleboro NC Tornado was on the ground for 16.5 miles and produced peak winds of 150 mph,” the National Weather Service reported. “This is the first EF-3 tornado ever observed in central North Carolina in the month of July!”

“We can confirm that the Pfizer Rocky Mount facility was damaged by the tornado,” the company tweeted. “Pfizer colleagues at the site followed our established safety protocol and were able to evacuate. They are safe and accounted for.”

“We are assessing the situation to determine the impact on production,” another tweet indicated, as “thoughts are with our colleagues, our patients, and the community as we rebuild from this weather incident.”

This plant is one of their “largest sterile injectable facilities in the world,” with the factory making almost 25% of Pfizer’s sterile injectables used for U.S hospitals.

Over 400 million units are manufactured at this plant annually.

“At this facility, a wide range of products are produced, including anesthesia, analgesia, therapeutics, anti-infectives and neuromuscular blockers. These products are available in small volume presentations, such as ampules, vials and syringes, and large volume presentations, such as IV bags and semi-rigid bottles,” a release states.

Parts of the roof were ripped off in the storm and debris was scattered. Thursday, the National Weather Service stated that the tornado was an EF3 and had peak winds of 150 mph.

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