The State - News from Sept. 29, 1988

A toxic cloud forced nearly 500 people to flee homes, businesses and a school in the Northern California towns of Hercules and Rodeo after vandals or thieves reportedly caused the spill of 1,000 gallons of nitric acid at an abandoned dynamite factory. A spokesman for Hercules Properties, owner of the former Hercules Powder Co., said the leak 20 miles northeast of San Francisco apparently started when someone tried to steal the valves from two stainless steel tanks. One firefighter was overcome by fumes and was treated at Doctors Hospital in Pinole.