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Explosions outside of Waco, Texas


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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 18, 2013 -> 09:12 AM)
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.

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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.

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QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 18, 2013 -> 10:16 AM)
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.

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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.

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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.

 

 

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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.

 

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QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 19, 2013 -> 09:16 AM)
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.

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QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 18, 2013 -> 08:26 PM)
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.

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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

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