CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Edwin Hoffman was swatting a tennis ball with a friend when he spied a huge cloud rising from the Union Carbide plant and heard a loudspeaker blare the words "gas leak."

Barbara Clark first sniffed the chemical odor while walking her dog. She raced home and closed the windows, but the smell grew stronger.

Terence Kizer's Sunday morning was interrupted when a neighbor hammered on his door and told him to evacuate.

The people of Institute, a Charleston suburb, had good reason to flee the gas that spread through their town before any warning was given last Aug. 11. Eight months earlier, most of them learned for the first time they were in the shadow of the only U.S. plant making methyl isocyanate, the chemical known as MIC, which had just killed more than 2,000 people and injured thousands in a gas leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal , India.

History's worst industrial accident aroused immediate fears in Institute as residents realized Union Carbide made the same chemical a few hundred yards away. But Union Carbide shut down the MIC unit, spent $5 million early last year to make it safer and pledged that the Bhopal disaster would not be repeated. Federal officials inspected and declared the unit safe.

Then, last August, a different toxic mixture leaked - aldicarb oxime and other chemicals. No one died, but 135 residents sought hospital treatment. For many in Institute, where a college and a center for the handicapped nestle beside the plant, the promises suddenly seemed empty.

"We were kind of deceived by Union Carbide," said Charles White, chairman of a planning committee for the unincorporated town. The leak on Aug. 11 "indicated that it could happen here," said Thomas Cole, a chemist and president of West Virginia State College. Spokesman Thad Epps said the company had been "straightforward" with the community.

No place in the United States has become more familiar with the specter of toxic air pollution after the Bhopal catastrophe than the narrow Kanawha Valley near Charleston - crowded with chemical plants and surrounding towns and similar in some respects to the Houston Ship Channel area. As residents try to reconcile the industry's benefits and risks, the debate has revolved around a divisive issue: Can the "Chemical Valley" have both jobs and safety?

In the days following Aug. 11, two gatherings - in Institute and nearby South Charleston, the other Valley town with a Union Carbide factory - vividly displayed that question's polarizing effect. As anger swelled in Institute, other area residents grew anxious that the outcry might lead to closed plants.

On Aug. 17, 500 people paraded in South Charleston. One placard addressed Union Carbide: "Thank you for 6,000 jobs." Another challenged the disgruntled: "It's your choice to live here, so leave Carbide alone."

Betty Ray, a medical administrator with no ties to the company, organized the rally. She thought Union Carbide was being singled out unfairly. "It's a small minority who want Carbide out of the Valley," she said. The company "has preached safety, spent millions on safety. They've really done all they can do."

The next day in Institute, 300 angry people demanded an explanation from Union Carbide officials about the leak and the assurances beforehand. "It could never happen here. But it did," read one sign. "I don't want to find out seven months from now that my baby will be deformed," a pregnant woman complained.

"Most of the people who were so upset were not really environmental types," said Hoffman, the history professor who called the meeting. "They had pretty much said, `I'm living in this Valley, and I know this Valley stinks.' "

Hoffman founded People Concerned About MIC after the Bhopal tragedy, but the group stayed small. "When the leak came here, our credibility went way up," he said. "Community concern mushroomed."

South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb led those who voiced faith in the industry after the Aug. 11 leak, saying he would welcome a new Union Carbide plant for processing toxic PCBs that had run into resistance in Kentucky. "If it had been an MIC plant - the one that killed the people in India - I would have said we'll take it here," he said later.

A Charleston Gazette poll found nearly 60 percent of Kanawha County's residents would accept a new plant making toxic chemicals, because of jobs and tax revenue. And the percentage with confidence in the safety of area chemical plants had grown since a similar poll just after the Bhopal leak.

The reason for the greater prevalence of dissent in Institute go beyond MIC and the leak there. Other towns live with comparable risks, but Institute gains fewer benefits.

South Charleston gets more advantages from having a chemical plant next door - "one of the reasons for the lack of the same kind of support (in Institute)," Robb said. South Charleston, he said, "is clearly a Carbide town. They contribute directly and indirectly approximately 60 percent of the city's budget."

In contrast, some Institute residents accuse the company of trying to keep their town unincorporated to avoid paying taxes. County officials authorized an incorporation election but left the plant outside the proposed city limits, as Union Carbide wanted. A group of Institute residents appealed to the courts, and the company has offered to make payments to the city in lieu of taxes. The dispute is still undecided, said Sylvia Parker, who chairs the residents' group.

Then there is race - in Robb's view, "a significant factor." Two to three percent of South Charleston's residents are black. Institute is about 90 percent black. Before integration, the college and rehabilitation center were black institutions.

For years, Union Carbide would hire only whites for the better-paying jobs, said White, who chairs Institute's planning committee. "At first, blacks couldn't work in certain positions. Now they can hold any job they're qualified for." But, he added, "not that many blacks living in Institute benefit" from the plant, estimating 35 residents from 500 to 600 households have jobs there.

Clark, an associate professor who teaches college health classes and lives on campus, was blunt about the uneasy relationship between company and community: "They're not getting anything from Institute or giving anything to Institute."

Residents of the town say they want better emergency notification, more escape routes than the single two-lane road that now exists and removal of the most toxic chemicals to a less populous area. Plans were recently announced to build a new road along the Kanawha River, with Union Carbide paying most of the costs. And residents also won a commitment on notification.

Union Carbide spokesman Thad Epps said there was not an "excessive" gap between the start of the Aug. 11 leak and the company's notification of public officials.

The Environmental Protection Agency said in December, however, that the company's 12-minute delay was too long, and local officials did not respond properly. Before that EPA report, the company had already announced it would notify first and decide later if it was necessary. Also, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Union Carbide $32,000 for neglecting safety rules.

Many residents fear even the fastest warning will not give time to escape. The Aug. 11 leak was on a Sunday, with fewer people around than usual. The college was between terms and most of the West Virginia Rehabilitation Center's handicapped patients were away. On weekdays, "you can't even get out the road to go to lunch," grumbled one student.

"We think we're trapped," said Hoffman. His group wants better access to nearby Interstate 64, as well as the promised extra road along the Kanawha River.

Instead of evacuating, emergency plans at the college and rehabilitation center call for taking refuge in certain buildings, then sealing them until the gas disperses. That may be safer than fleeing, even if new roads are built, said Cole, the college president.

Emergency drills at the rehabilitation center have taken seven to 10 minutes, said administrator John Harrison. "I'm fairly confident the plan is adequate. The more alert time we have, the more confident I'd feel."

Union Carbide will "probably" put new plants with very toxic chemicals in remote locations, Epps said, but "it's not very easy to pack up and move (an existing plant). And it's easier to do that than to find something to take its place."

The company has promised to reduce its routine, intentional releases of chemicals that are not harmful at the time, but some of which may pose long-term risks of cancer and other ailments, according to the EPA.

Perry Bryant, until this month the director of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, said he was "a little naive" to hope the state would limit these routine releases. "Even if we had the resources, we lack the political will. West Virginia has the highest unemployment in the country."

Bryant was encouraged when state officials began studying possible links between high cancer rates in the Valley and routine releases of tons of possibly cancer-causing chemicals, but then the Bhopal and Institute leaks focused public attention instead on emergency preparedness, he said.

The new National Institute for Chemical Studies, founded in Charleston with support from all sides of the issue, is pressing for voluntary, industrywide reductions of routine releases while it surveys plant safety and plans a study of the relationship between health problems and air pollution in the Valley, said Executive Director Lewis Crampton.

The institute funded a poll late last year the results of which surprised some in the Valley. It indicated most residents were not willing to make trade-offs for economic gains that involve more risks for themselves or a retreat from environmental protection.

Carl Beard, director of the West Virginia Air Pollution Control Commission, expressed optimism that he will be able to persuade other companies with plants in the Valley to voluntarily reduce their routine emissions.

As government and corporate officials grapple with the problem of how to make the chemical industry safer, Institute waits.

"I'm not too worried about it myself," shrugged Phil Brooke, a paraplegic student at the rehabilitation center. "If something happens, I guess it happens."

Terence Kizer, a student at the college when he was injured in the Aug. 11 leak, said he holds no grudge against Union Carbide, but is irked by its supporters who criticize Institute. "I wish they could have been here to see how scary it really was. Your life can blink in front of you in the wink of an eye."

"We realize people have to work, but we want to make it safe for the workers and for ourselves," said Edward Clark, Barbara Clark's husband, "I believe they've got their priorities mixed up. If they're going to make it, I'm for making it safe. If they can't make it safe, then get rid of it."

Next: Despite safeguards for one of the deadliest chemicals made, dangerous leaks still occur at Houston-area plants.