Link

You've gotta be s***ting me.

 

All those places within a half mile?

Edited April 18, 201313 yr by farmteam

The nursing home is closer than the distance to the left field wall at US Cellular from home plate.

West, Texas. Scott Podsednik's home town.

It isn't as common as you would think. Neighborhoods spring up around dangerous places all of the time. Many times it happened before ordinances went on to the books, or there just aren't rules against it.

 

There are all kinds of homes near the state prison in my hometown. I doubt it explodes, but some people regretted it in the 1970s when prison riots led to max security prisoners running around the town.

just awful. It's really hard for me to put in perspective. I guess it would be similar to a tornado, but how do you begin to pick up the pieces in a small town when half the town is suddenly gone? And the main employer and public servants gone? Thoughts go out.

just awful. It's really hard for me to put in perspective. I guess it would be similar to a tornado, but how do you begin to pick up the pieces in a small town when half the town is suddenly gone? And the main employer and public servants gone? Thoughts go out.

Kinda like Joplin in that sense.

just awful. It's really hard for me to put in perspective. I guess it would be similar to a tornado, but how do you begin to pick up the pieces in a small town when half the town is suddenly gone? And the main employer and public servants gone? Thoughts go out.

 

Last year's tornado in Henryville is probably a good parallel in terms of property damage, though the death and injury toll in Henryville doesn't match up.

You've gotta be s***ting me.

 

All those places within a half mile?

 

Whoever laid out this town is a f***ing idiot.

Wow. That video was ridiculous. Quick aside, why do iPhone 5 owners refuse to hold their phones in landscape?

Wow. That video was ridiculous. Quick aside, why do iPhone 5 owners refuse to hold their phones in landscape?

Why does ANYONE refuse to hold it in landscape? It drives me INSANE!

I just ran through this with my students. Comparing the West, TX to the Boston Marathon bomb. Three dead versus 15 or more. About the same number of injuries. A couple buildings with damaged windows, buildings and homes destroyed. Which will be in the news for weeks or months then anniversary stories a year later and which is already out of the news in some areas? Boston will raise millions for a city that will survive without the help. West, TX may be destroyed.

 

 

I just ran through this with my students. Comparing the West, TX to the Boston Marathon bomb. Three dead versus 15 or more. About the same number of injuries. A couple buildings with damaged windows, buildings and homes destroyed. Which will be in the news for weeks or months then anniversary stories a year later and which is already out of the news in some areas? Boston will raise millions for a city that will survive without the help. West, TX may be destroyed.

 

A lot of the dead/injured in Texas are first responders so I have a feeling first responders from all over the country will make sure those families are taken care of.

 

The company said the plant had no alarms, automatic shutoff system, firewall or sprinkler system.

Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal

 

Well that is just the stupidest thing.

Well that is just the stupidest thing.

Turns out I can still beat that.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration most recently inspected the Texas fertilizer plant that exploded Wednesday night in 1985.

 

Records reviewed by The Associated Press show that OSHA issued the West Chemical & Fertilizer Co., as the plant was called at the time, a $30 fine for a serious violation for storage of anhydrous ammonia.

 

OSHA cited the plant for four other serious violations of respiratory protection standards but did not issue fines. The maximum fine for a serious violation was $1,000.

 

By a different source, I'm reading that Texas has roughly enough resources to inspect plants in their state roughly once every 126 years. Nationwide, OSHA is at a confidence boosting once every 99 years.

Twelve bodies recovered in West, Texas, after fire and explosion at fertilizer plant.

NBC reporting that there are currently still 60 people unaccounted for.

NBC reporting that there are currently still 60 people unaccounted for.

 

Sadly, most or all probably disintegrated.

Sadly, most or all probably disintegrated.

If that's the case, or even a portion of them are gone for that reason, this event would rapidly become one of the deadliest industrial accidents in US History.

NBC reporting that there are currently still 60 people unaccounted for.

 

From the same story:

But officials later said that the list of missing people that had been provided was "confusing."

I just ran through this with my students. Comparing the West, TX to the Boston Marathon bomb. Three dead versus 15 or more. About the same number of injuries. A couple buildings with damaged windows, buildings and homes destroyed. Which will be in the news for weeks or months then anniversary stories a year later and which is already out of the news in some areas? Boston will raise millions for a city that will survive without the help. West, TX may be destroyed.

 

I completely understand why the bombings get more coverage, but I agree that West, TX needs the money way more than Boston does.

Supposedly everyone is now accounted for and the final death toll is 14.

 

Investigators have stated they have identified the source of the explosion but have not released public information on it yet, nor do they knwo what started the fire.

The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

 

Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate – which can also be used in bomb making – unaware of any danger there.

 

Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren’t shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.

 

A U.S. congressman and several safety experts called into question on Friday whether incomplete disclosure or regulatory gridlock may have contributed to the disaster.

 

“It seems this manufacturer was willfully off the grid,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, (D-MS), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement. “This facility was known to have chemicals well above the threshold amount to be regulated under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act (CFATS), yet we understand that DHS did not even know the plant existed until it blew up.”

 

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9...130420?irpc=932

Some (very critical) thoughts over why this story is getting so little media coverage despite so many people being killed by what appears to have been a completely preventable explosion.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mik...d70e_story.html

I smell what they're stepping in (no pun intended), but do we really need to question the media's motives on this decision?