These kinds of explosions are not unprecedented at fertilizer plants. If you ever see one on fire, you don't stand there shooting pictures. You run your happy ass directly away from it as fast as you can go.
A friend of mine who has experience with the fertilizer industry in that reason says it was a large anhydrous ammonia plant. Anhydrous is a pressurized gas, you do the math.
A very nice little summatio of the facts as we know them right now. In short, not much. http://www.agprofessional.com/news/Looking-for-Texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-facts-203607881.html
At least the death toll numbers they're talking about now are far less than what was making the rounds last night. I just saw something that said it could be as few as 8 which, while still tragic, is far better than the 60-70 number that EMS guy was tossing around on Wednesday night.
All the more reason why, to the logical mind, you wouldn't jam all those heavily-populated facilities into such a small area.
My understanding is that the plant used to be on the outskirts of town, but the city grew to the point that it wasn't any more. Kinda dumb to build things like schools next to a place that has the potential to blow them up.
The school my daughter attended from K-6 was next to an old refinery that was briefly turned into a freon plant.
On a lighter note, West was mainly settled by Czech and German immigrants. The town is notable for the delicious kolaches they sell there, with several bakeries there. The Czech Stop (seen on the right side of this photo from Wednesday) is the most popular/famous because it's right on the I-35 access road. If you're passing through town, though, do yourself a favor and drive about three blocks behind the Czech Stop and go to the Ole Czech Bakery. Their kolaches are superior, probably because they don't make as many as the Czech stop does.
Exactly what I thought. This is a recurring issue in Towns like this, where businesses outside of town find themselves surrounded. West did not think this one through.
My uncle, by marriage, is the Safety Director at a local fertilizer manufacturer. Same situation too. The town grew up around the plant and there's a nursing home directly across the street from it. About fifteen years ago, a fire broke out in one of the warehouses. The FD Chief asked for and got volunteers drive a pumper truck right in up amongst it all to start hosing down and cooling off the main chemical storage tanks. He figured risking one truck and four lives was better that letting it blow and leveling half the town.
Apparently search and rescue operations have ended. 14 dead, 11 of whom were emergency responders. 200 injuries reported 150 buildings destroyed 50 buildings cleared by search and rescue teams 25 buildings yet to be cleared 3 fire trucks destroyed 1 EMS vehicle destroyed
Got to love Texas, a great place to do business. No government regulations, and forget about that liability insurance nonsense. That insurance is expensive, and it cuts into profits. Who needs it anyway? The Texas Tea Baggers know that the Federal Government will come through with the disaster money that they are entitled to. :headinsand: So a company blows up half a town, kills lots of people, and destroys a bunch of homes but they only have $1 million in liability insurance. Worse, Texas law protects the company from lawsuits by capping the amount which can be awarded so the company gets off scot free despite it's practically criminal negligence. I've heard several of our libertarian posters say in the past that there should be no regulation and if the company does something to harm others they should be sued but when Republicans are in charge people tend to lose their right to sue companies for damages so I guess they get the best of both worlds while regular people are just out of luck. http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...cab504-b4e8-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html
There obviously already are regulations. Do you even have a clue how ridiculous you and yours sound when you remark these inane little trolls? In the absence of the federal regime of regulations we might instead have more substantial state or even private or local watchdogs that are preempted since we've already empowered the perennially incompetent big massah. We're conditioned to draw comfort from our alphabet soup of uncountable (often incompetent) federal agencies. Bafflingly, your ilk has the unreasonable and unfounded confidence that biggov (a proven failure, mind) is the answer to nearly all (even as yet undefined or identified) problems or risks.
As a rule the officials that work for the various alphabet agencies are borderline incompetent, with a dash if petty thrown in for fun. I've dealt with them before, and they rarely make things easier, or safer for that matter. Now, places like this can not operate without insurance. The insurance companies can be more strict than the government while at the same time be easier to work with, as their staffed by folks with lots of experience in the industry. (Former managers of places like this) So I'd like to know more about the insurance company, when was the last inspection, and how come they didn't realize what problems were there. They would have had far more on the line than a .gov agency, or even the facility itself.
Ahh so you have already determined that this is an industrial accident caused by negligence on the part of the company and have ruled out any other cause?
