Holy mother of....Explosion in Texas

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Explosion-Injuries-Reported-At-West-Fertilizer-Plant-203505331.html

Wow...

It's been a horrible, horrific week. I have not felt like doing any work on music since this and the other incident occurred but will get back to my work later this month. If I feel very sad then I can't fully imagine how hard this has hit hundreds of people directly involved, their love ones gone, many more terribly injured. My heart goes out to all these people. 

Kalle Rantaaho


How can such a plant be so close to a big apartment building??? Fertilizer plants are almost as risky as firework-plants.

Probobly more risky as the scale of a fertilizer plant is usually far greater that a pyrotechnics specialist.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate
 
It's an horrific tragedy whatever the cause and again we see the front line services giving up their lives in a brave attempt to stop this catastrophe, they almost certainly would have known the risks involved in trying to fight this blaze.
 
Condolences to those that have lost loved ones and had their lives impacted on in such a terrible way.

KenB123

Poor kid in the video I saw likely suffered partial or total deafness from the bang

 
I assume we saw the same video... the father filming the fire in their car before the explosion (I am guessing from about 200-400 yards distance). My one consolation lies in the hopes that if she had acquired permanent hearing loss that the father would not be so callous as to post the video so soon. So I go on that faith and assume she turned out okay, although quite shaken up.  
 
My thoughts go out to the victims.

Yeah you're probably right, although it's likely she (or he?) would have had a pretty bad ringing in the ears, which may or may not completely subside. One loud noise is enough to cause permanent tinnitus, Andy Partridge from XTC got it from someone triggering a snare sample at full volume through his cans in the studio. You can also get it from close proximity to a gun being fired if you're not wearing protection. 

This is most likely a simple industrial accident. I've heard they had safety issues and had not had a safety inspector in the plant in years. With time, people start cutting corners. Maintenance on equipment gets postponed..... things happen. I'm not making an excuse for them... it's just the way it is. 

About 10 years ago, here in NC we had a pharmaceutical plant explode. It killed about 6 and injured many more. Debris from the plant was blown up to 2 miles away and caused fires. The resultant fire at the plant burned for several days. The cause was a gas line problem and rubber dust in the plant. The gas line exploded first but it was a relatively small blast. However, the shock wave blew the rubber dust into the air where it was ignited and that caused the "big" blast which literally tore the plant apart. 

Dust of almost any kind is highly combustible. Grain elevators are notorious for exploding. Common baking flour will explode under the right conditions. 

A couple of barrels of that fertilizer (Ammonium Nitrate) was used in the Oklahoma City bombing.....and apparently they were making it at that factory.....

Beagle


I have not seen any evidence that the fertlizer for the OKC bombing was manufactered in West, TX.  The fertilizer was purchased in McPherson, KS.  that doesn't mean it wasn't manufactured in West, but there are fertilizer manufacturers and warehouses in Kansas and Missouri, so it would be unlikely that the fertilizer for the OKC bombing came from West, TX.

(41) 50 pound bags of fertilizer were purchased from Mid-Kansas Coop in McPherson, KS.   McVeigh started planning the bombing from his home in Herrington, KS before he moved the operation to OKC. 

Also, fertilizer was not the only explosive ingredient in the bombs.  some of the barrels had both fertilizer and nitromethane and some had deisel fuel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

and coincidentally (?) today is the 18th anniversary of the OKC bombing (April 19, 1995)

I don't think Herb was drawing any inference the AN used in the OKC bombing came from West, merely that is the primary composition of the device used there.
 
It's commonly used in improvised devices, and was used extensively in WWI as an specifically for causing huge explosions to disrupt enemy trenchs by tunneling undereath and using AN in large quantities.
 
There have also been many accidental disasters with the material which is capable of producing some the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.
 
This famous one in 1947 was in Texas also.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster
 
 

exactly.... not saying they made the stuff for OKC..... just that it was the same stuff.


Today is also the 20th anniversary of Waco..... 

CS gas .... highly combustible, was used there.  Wood structure, high winds, and lots of people were burned to death including 26 innocent children...... 

surely there was a better way to resolve that stand-off?