Rubbertown Residents Frustrated With Hotline Lapse

Residents in the Rubbertown neighborhood are upset that a hotline created to alert them about chemical leaks was not updated following a plant explosion in west Louisville.The Rubbertown Community Awareness Line of Louisville is an emergency telephone notification service that was established by Metro Government in 2004. It is supposed to be updated every half hour by companies operating in the area.But resident Charles Pope says the line was not updated after the explosion at Carbide Industries on Monday.“And that’s the problem we’ve been having down there. There’s no alert. They keep telling us there are alarms. There are no alarm bells. No sirens or nothing down there warning the people in the neighborhood of what’s going on.”Carbide Industries General Manager John Gant says the delay was his company’s fault, not the city’s.Mayor Greg Fischer has ordered an upgrade to the line and MetroSafe Communications will take over the responsibility for updating it until a new system can be put in place.