Texas Fertilizer explosion: at least 70 dead

@chai2,

Im always amazed at the land planning (or lack of it) in Texas. DID the town of West sprawl upside to the fertilizer plant or did the plant plop itself close to homes?

The answer may solve a lot of concerns Ive had about how lack of zoning may affect health and safety.
Vermont doesnt have much zoning either but its so hilly that everyone seems to settle homes and factories in stream beds.

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@farmerman,

Have you ever been to Houston?

Virtually no zoning at all.

But people are not chained to any particular town or city. I would never live in Houston, but that's a choice I will exercise.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I had an office in Houston (NEVER FIGURED OUT hOUSTON) and one in San ANtonio (I loved San Antonio). I also had a brief field office in between the two towns of Midland and Odessa. (Talk about armpit0. We were doing secondary recovery of **** oil that was gone to waste and we made bunker out of it for ship fuel. We made a lot of money but it was a two year prequel to a movie about HELL..

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@farmerman,

There is a lot to be said for Texas, but for a state as large as it is, there are relatively very few acres of beautiful landscape.

I've come to appreciate the large skies, but that's about it.

My nephew moved here a few years before I did and at an age that precluded any recall of the North Carolina where he was born. One year I took him "back home" to Charlotte and as we drove from the airport he remarked "Uncle Finn, this is a jungle!"

Born and raised in New York and twenty years in NC. After 10 years in Texas, I'm not retiring here.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Yuve never been out to the Capitans or the Delaware Basin Roks of West Texas(REALLY WEST TEXAS).

Just drive like a sumbitch through Midland and Odessa

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@farmerman,

No I haven't, and I've seen plenty of pictures of Texas beauty, but I repeat, for a place of this size, the beauty is minimal.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

But hey, nomads love the steppes.

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West Fertilizer Co. Told the EPA That Last Night's Explosion Could Never Happen

Quote:

A massive blast at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, on Wednesday night injured and killed an untold number of people. According to the plant's own emergency planning report, however, such an explosion was more or less an impossibility.

The Dallas Morning News got its hands on the West Fertilizer Co.'s report, filed with the EPA and local public safety officials assessing the risk of fire or explosion at the plant, which had an estimated 54,000 pounds anhydrous ammonia on site. Given last night's terrible explosion, the company's own worst-case scenario was, in retrospect, astonishingly mild (emphasis mine):

The report, reviewed Wednesday night by The Dallas Morning News, stated 'no' under fire or explosive risks. The worst possible scenario, the report said, would be a 10-minute release of ammonia gas that would kill or injure no one. The second worst possibility projected was a leak from a broken hose used to transfer the product, again causing no injuries. The plan says the facility did not have any other dangerous chemicals on hand. It says that the plan was on file with the local fire department and that the company had implemented proper safety rules.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/04/18/west_texas_explosion_fertilizer_company_told_the_epa_that_there_was_no_fire.html

our inability to correctly appraise risk fucks us six ways to Sunday.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

No I haven't, and I've seen plenty of pictures of Texas beauty, but I repeat, for a place of this size, the beauty is minimal.

Actually, I have to agree with you there Finn

There's no place other than Austin that I would live in Texas. I go literally weeks at a time without leaving its city limits (it's fairly spread out). Every day, I drive to work from just South of downtown, to the Northern limits. Once I get past 183, I feel like I'm in some S. Florida strip shopping center.

Sure, driving West of Austin is the Hill Country, but that turns into (shudder) El Paso soon enough.
Personally, I think San Antonio is fugly, if you're not visiting the tourist attractions....even then.....

Anyway, yeah, there's a few gems though, and I'm glad I live in one of them.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

People from Western US are bowled over by the color GREEN of our hills and woods. I am similaly bowled over by the bone-bare starkness of Western vistas. Beuty comes in several unique packages.

ALL EXCEPT MIDLAND ODESSA TEX

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@chai2,

Fort Worth itself is OK, but it's too close to Dallas.

The small towns in the Hill Country are nice. Mostly because of the proximity to the lakes, but it's not the same as living in a city.

San Marcos reminds me a lot of Austin 25 years ago.

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@DrewDad,

ever been to Midland?

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@farmerman,

Several times. You will note that it does not have a place on my list.

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@DrewDad,

Oh god I hate san marcos.

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@DrewDad,

Quote:

Mostly because of the proximity to the lakes

With the Texas heat, those must get to be rank sloughs by July.

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I have always been fond of Amarillo, or anyplace in the deserts of western Texas. I love the desert. And the Big Bend National Park is absolutely beautiful, to me.

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Fertilizer has always been dangerous because it is explosive and it is used in vast quantities, meaning that it tends to be stashed in large quantities.

As I've heard it, one of the biggest if not the biggest non nuclear explosions in recorded history took place when a shipload of fertilizer leveled most of Galveston somewhere in the early 1900s.

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@mysteryman,

mysteryman wrote:

I have always been fond of Amarillo, or anyplace in the deserts of western Texas. I love the desert. And the Big Bend National Park is absolutely beautiful, to me.

I agree mysteryman, that Big Bend is beautiful. There's a big big difference though, between the wild rugged beauty of this....

http://localism.com/system/s3_buckets/activerain-image-store-2/image_store/region_images/ar120362248020066.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DS-M4Qx9LZM/TzOBR_RUIGI/AAAAAAAAAMU/oqcIJ-pPNQU/s1600/big+bend+national+park+1.jpg

and this....

http://www.imfinetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/im-fine-today-dustin-davis-texas-thanksgiving-02.jpg

Don't get me wrong, I love my state.

It's just not like a lot of other places, since you have to drive through miles of the last picture to get to the former ones.

I appreciate it's an important eco-system going on, that it's the home to various animals and plant life. Just not my cup of tea.

I've lived in small towns in other places in the U.S., and I'm just not a small town gal. That has more to do with a combination of factors though.

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Getting back to the explosion in West, Tx, I've been thinking about this.

Putting the act of terrorism aside for a moment, this is all so lopsided to me.

In Boston 3 people killed 175 injured out of 625,000 plus population
In West 14 people killed 200 injured out of 3000ish population. That's 7.0% of their population, as opposed to 0.03% of Bostons.

Just seems off to me that Bostonians are being praised for their "strength and courage" when it's a certainty that they only know of the victims through news pictures and twitter feeds. Not to mention those who, as farmerman alluded to in another thread, are using this as an excuse to have a party because the suspect was caught.

How about the strength and courage of people who were much more likely connected to one or more of the people that died or were injured that day?

My belief is that if an accident happened in Boston (or a lot of other big places) that claimed 14 lives and injured 200, we'd still be getting news coverage about it today.

Sorry bumfuck small town usa, 7% of your population died, got hurt, and you had your 5 minutes of coverage, carry on.

Stating that, I would like to acknowledge and commend the strength and courage of the citizens of West, Texas during this life changing event.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

I would like to acknowledge and commend the strength and courage of the citizens of West, Texas during this life changing event.

ditto...

and those in the earthquake in China...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-22228225

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Texas Fertilizer explosion: at least 70 dead

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