West Fertilizer Plant Explosion to Cause $100M in Insured Property Losses

Property Casualty 360 by Chad Hemenway 23 April 2013

The massive explosion at a West, Texas fertilizer plant has caused at least $100 million in insured losses to property.

Mark Hanna, spokesman of the Insurance Council of Texas, tells PC360 from the small rural town of about 2,800 that damages include “concussion-type losses.”

That is, some homes look normal from the outside but have suffered damage.

To illustrate the point, Hanna relays a conversation he had with a resident: “She had a can of beans on the kitchen counter and it exploded, but no windows of her house were broken.”

In other words, damages may take some time to assess because they may not immediately be noticed. The forces related to the explosion may have affected structures and vehicles differently than a tornado, for example, although the destruction has been described as tornado-like.

The blast April 17 destroyed 75 homes, a middle school, an apartment building, and a retirement center. Insurance adjusters are on the scene assisting policyholders.

Hanna tells another story of a man and his 9-year-old son driving between the apartment building and the retirement center. The truck drove 20 yards on two wheels when the blast occurred. Both were not seriously hurt but the truck was crumpled on one side and is totaled.

“We’re hearing a lot of strange stories related to the force of this blast,” says Hanna. “It’s like visiting the site of a tornado and hearing about straw going through wood. It’s hard to believe.”

Hanna says the town is split in three sections. Residents of zone 1, the farthest away from the explosion, have been allowed back to their homes. Zone 2 was just opened. The most affected areas remain closed off.
Hanna reports the Red Cross says it is assisting about 180 families, including those from the apartment complex. Many do not have insurance.
It is not clear who insured the West Fertilizer Co. but PC360 has learned only a handful of carriers serving the agribusiness niche would take the risk. Independent agents handling the business would ask if ammonium nitrate was stored on the premise. This would not preclude the facility from obtaining insurance but it would trigger additional investigation by a carrier.
PC360 has also learned many facilities like this one have stopped storing ammonium nitrate to avoid additional regulation. Facilities that do store the volatile chemical compound must register with the Department of Homeland Security. Reportedly, this plant did not.

Owner of West fertilizer plant releases statement

wbtv.com 24 April 2013 02:02 (BST)

Donald Adair, lifelong resident of the community of West, Texas and owner of Adair Grain Inc., today issued the following statement:

This has been a terrible week for everyone in West, Texas and I want to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt sympathy for those affected and my appreciation for those who responded.
As a lifelong resident, my heart is broken with grief for the tragic losses to so many families in our community. I know that everyone has been deeply affected by this incident. Loved ones have been injured or killed. Homes have been damaged or destroyed. Our hearts go out to everyone who has suffered.
The selfless sacrifice of first responders who died trying to protect all of us is something I will never get over. I was devastated to learn that we lost one of our employees in the explosion. He bravely responded to the fire at the facility as a volunteer firefighter. I will never forget his bravery and his sacrifice, or that of his colleagues who rushed to the trouble.

This tragedy will continue to hurt deeply for generations to come.

My family and I can't express enough our deep appreciation for the loving service and selfless sacrifice from within and around our community responding to the urgent needs of those affected. I am proud to be associated with West Church of Christ, which has opened its doors to the State of Texas to provide grief counseling services. My family and I will continue to assist in relief efforts through our church family.
The genuine kindness we have witnessed will be the hallmark for all of our children's children.

Going forward, the owners and employees of Adair Grain and West Fertilizer Co. are working closely with investigating agencies. We are presenting all employees for interviews and will assist in the fact finding to whatever degree possible. We pledge to do everything we can to understand what happened to ensure nothing like this ever happens again in any community.
While the investigation continues, and out of respect for the investigative process, we will limit our comments during the weeks and months ahead.

State, federal investigators begin ruling out causes of the deadly West fertilizer plant fire, explosion

Dallas News by Brandon Formby 23 April 2013 at 20:42 (BST)

State and federal investigators combing through the mangled wreckage of a decimated 11-building, 10-acre fertilizer plant have already ruled out some causes of the fire and subsequent explosion that killed 14 people in this normally calm Central Texas farming community.

Assistant State Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner said Tuesday the fire that ignited an unknown chemical, triggering the massive explosion, was not started from natural causes such as lightning. That means the cause of the fire – if it can be determined – will be either deemed accidental or intentional.

Kistner also said the source of the blast that left a 93-foot wide, 10-foot deep crater at the plant was not a toppled rail car filled with ammonium nitrite.

“It is a victim of that explosion,” Kistner said.

The site of the explosion was not on the railway spur that the rail car was knocked off of. Kistner said there were no other rail cars at the site.

“The investigation has to work itself out,” said N. Alex Winslow, the executive director of the nonpartisan consumer advocacy group Texas Watch. “But I think there are a few things that are becoming apparent … among them being lax oversight and regulation for industrial plants generally.”
West Fertilizer has had problems complying with Texas environmental rules for decades, state records show.
In 1984, the company moved two large pressurized tanks of liquid anhydrous ammonia, a potentially lethal poison, from a site in nearby Hill County to its current location in West without notifying state authorities.
Seven years passed before Texas regulators took notice and told the company to fix its paperwork. The tanks had sat at their new location, near homes, schools and a nursing home, with little or no state oversight for all that time.

In 1987, the company – then known as West Chemical and Fertilizer Co. – was venting ammonia that built up in transfer pipes into the air despite explicit orders in its permit not to do so. The company apparently changed its practices.

In 2006, a West police officer called a company employee to tell him an ammonia tank valve was leaking. The employee confirmed the leak and “took the NH3 [ammonia] tank out to the country at his farm,” according to a handwritten note. “West Police followed him.”

The Office of the Texas State Chemist, a division of Texas A&M University, is fighting a Dallas Morning News request for inspection and inventory records, citing national security concerns regarding ammonium nitrate, which can be highly explosive and used in bombs.

Lawmakers have largely held off on recommending any specific safety guidelines in the aftermath of the blast, saying they’d prefer to see what investigators learn about the incident first.

Texas town holds no grudge against exploded fertiliser plant owner

Euronews 23 April 2013 at 13:05

WEST, Texas (Reuters) – When Texas farmer Donald Adair bought the floundering West Fertilizer Co in 2004, his neighbours in the rolling countryside near West were grateful he had saved them from driving extra miles to Waco or Hillsboro to buy fertiliser, feed and tools.

After the plant exploded last week, flattening homes, damaging schools, killing 14 people and leaving some 200 others with injuries including burns, lacerations and broken bones, they still described the 83-year-old owner as honest and good.

“I like him very well, he’s helped me out,” said William Supak, a retired farmer who lives a few hundred yards (metres) from a farm house owned by the Adairs, and recalled a time when his neighbour helped save his hay by putting out a fire.

As he paused from mowing the grass in front of his house, Supak said the disaster in West did not change his view of Adair, whom he said he sometimes sees using a powered wheel chair to fetch his mail.
“I don’t see him very often, but I understand that he’s not in too good a health, said Supak.

Another neighbour of Adair, who asked not to be identified, described him as a “good guy.”
“It’s a farming community, everybody knows him. Like I said, it happened, and (to blame him) don’t make good sense.”

Adair has stayed out of the public eye, saying nothing since the statement he issued on Friday in which he vowed to cooperate with the investigation. A spokesman for Adair said he had been at the West Church of Christ, where he is an elder, on Wednesday night when he learned of the fire and drove to the scene to urge people to move to safety.
“As a lifelong resident, my heart is broken with grief for the tragic losses to so many families in our community,” Adair said in the statement. “The selfless sacrifice of first responders who died trying to protect all of us is something I will never get over.”

Most of the dozen residents interviewed by Reuters, including farmers, church members and local business owners who know Donald Adair, did not fault him for operating the plant so close to a residential area or for storing large quantities of the hazardous materials ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia.

The privately held fertilizer plant has been in operation since 1962, long before the homes and nearby schools were built, and the fertilizer was needed by farmers, they said.

“They provided a huge service to this area,” said Mimi Irwin, owner of the Village Bakery, which sells kolache pastries in downtown West and hails itself as the first all-Czech bakery in Texas. “People are just sick about it.”

West Fertilizer Co was in financial distress when Adair bought it nine years ago and farmers worried about losing a local resource for the supplies needed to grow corn, wheat and milo, several people said. Plant employees mixed fertilizers for farmers based on tests of their soil samples.

The fertilizer facility had an appraised market value of $908,400 when he bought it in 2004, according to McLennan County property tax records. By last year, its appraised value had fallen to $723,771, although it was not clear why.

The stable of Adair family businesses also includes Adair Grain, which is the parent company of West Fertilizer, and Adair Farms. Adair owns some 5,000 acres (2,023 hectares) of cropland and grassland in the area, Keeney said, which according to local tax records would be worth several million dollars at market prices.

MANAGEMENT LEFT TO OTHERS

Adair left the day-to-day operations at West Fertilizer to the plant’s 13 employees, including general manager Ted Uptmore Sr., who has been employed by the company for 50 years, Keeney and others said.
Uptmore ran the fertilizer part of the company, while Andrew “Rusty” Kwast, Adair’s son-in-law, ran the grain side, Keeney said. Adair continued to work his farm, the spokesman said.

Adair’s neighbours said West Fertilizer did brisk business at this time of year from farmers from a wide radius around West, selling dry fertilizer or tanks of anhydrous ammonia.

Local residents also said they knew that handling fertilizer was a potentially dangerous business.
West Fertilizer disclosed to a Texas state agency that, as of the end of 2012, the company was storing 270 tons of ammonium nitrate, mixed with other compounds to produce a dry fertilizer. The same type of solid fertilizer was mixed with fuel and used by Timothy McVeigh to raze the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.

West Fertilizer had been fined occasionally for regulatory violations since Adair bought it, but a Texas state environmental official described its safety record as “average.”

A search of federal and state legal records did not turn up any lawsuits against Adair personally or any of his companies.

Cernosek, the local insurance agent, was quick to defend Adair’s reputation even though his home 500 yards (457 metres) from the plant is likely a total loss.

“Hell no,” he said when asked if he held Adair responsible for what happened at the plant. “I in no way will ever file a lawsuit due to any of this.”


Some residents still had unanswered questions in the difficult, soul-searching days after the blast, among them Emily Polansky, who lives about half a mile (800 metres) from the plant and had her windows smashed when it blew. Walking with the aid of a cane, she puzzled over how the fire took hold after workers had left the plant and wondered about supervision.“I feel maybe there was a lack of supervision possibly on the management’s part with employees working there … maybe there weren’t safety precautions taken for dealing with anhydrous ammonia and (ammonium) nitrate,” Polansky, a farmer’s wife who is well-versed in fertilizers, told Reuters at the hotel where she is staying while she is kept out of her damaged home.
But resident Chuck Smith, who helped neighbours leave their homes amid the dark smoke and acrid fumes after the blast, was not prepared to point a finger at the Adairs.

“When all is said and done, they call them accidents for a reason. I mean the people that work there, the people that own that place, that go there … all of them were raised here, have kids here, have family here,” he said. “There was no malicious intent. There was no trying to skimp.”

Worst-case scenario?

Washington Post Opinions 20 April 2013

The giant explosion that rocked a fertilizer storage facility in West, Tex., last Wednesday ought to mandate a hard look by the federal government at rules governing the booming chemicals business. The country’s sudden abundance of cheap natural gas, a primary input in the manufacture of many things, including artificial fertilizer, has begun to attract chemical companies back to the United States, which certainly could use the jobs. But, as with any big industrial operation, chemicals manufacturing and storage brings a host of risks, toxic and explosive.

The right response is simple: Make companies comprehensively assess the risks they and those around their facilities face. Then they can take reasonable steps to guard against those risks and plan what to do when everything goes wrong. Wednesday night’s explosion, in other words, should not have been a total surprise, but a worst-case scenario the company had anticipated and prepared for.

As it stands, the federal regulatory system is far from simple, and it certainly could be more effective.
Journalists have already picked apart a 2011 risk assessment from West Fertilizers that the Center for Effective Government printed on its Web site. In it, the company told the Environmental Protection Agency that it had 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia on site, but that there was no danger of fire or explosion. Following Wednesday’s disaster, that claim seems to be tragically negligent.

Yet it probably stems from the fact that the EPA’s rules only cover gases such as ammonia, which is flammable only in extreme heat. There was another more volatile chemical on site, ammonium nitrate, that the EPA heard nothing about, because it is a solid. To store large amounts of ammonium nitrate, the company needed to file notice not with the EPA, but with the Department of Homeland Security, which reports suggest the company did not do.

Even if it had, it’s bizarre that all of this information wasn’t in the same place. Shouldn’t the possibility that the ammonium nitrate could ignite and explode have demanded that the company consider the chance that it would light up the ammonia? Risks shouldn’t just be considered in isolation from one another; companies must contemplate how they might interact.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, meanwhile, has its own domain of jurisdiction over these companies, but it hadn’t inspected the West Fertilizer plant since 1985, which, The Post’s Brad Plumer points out, might have something to do with a shortage of inspectors.

The industry says that what happened in West is extremely rare. But, at the least, the accident has exposed the federal regulatory morass in which the industry operates. Every regulator with any kind of responsibility for West Fertilizers now seems to be investigating what happened last Wednesday night, along with an independent federal inquiry. They shouldn’t shy from telling Congress and President Obama how to make the system more rational.

'Our house exploded! I'm scared to death!' Frantic 911 calls reveal residents' terror in aftermath of Texas plant fireball Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2313202/Texas-explosion-Frantic-911-calls-capture-residents-terror-aftermath-plant-fireball.html#ixzz2RI5S1025 Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The Daily Mail 22 April 2013 at 23:30

Fraught 911 recordings have revealed the aftermath of the massive explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant last week, as residents plea for help, scramble for answers and beg for more medical staff.

Recordings from the night reveal how the calls quickly moved from brief reports of smoke to frantic pleas for more emergency responders.

When the first call came in, it was just a fire. Smoke was coming from West Fertilizer Co. and an alarm was sounding, so a woman at a park just across the railroad tracks called 911. She was calm and matter of fact. The dispatcher responded in kind: 'OK, I'm going to get them to put out the fire.'

It was 7:29 p.m. April 17, and the last routine moment in West, Texas, since.

 

Within 20 minutes, the park was strewn with two-foot chunks of concrete from the exploded fertilizer plant. The apartment complex behind it was ripped apart by the wave of energy that climbed the railroad bed and slammed into the building, shredding its roof and blowing out windows.

Dispatchers were swamped with hysterical reports. Nearly all 50 calls that flooded in during the next 35 minutes came from within a mile of the plant. Some knew what happened, others knew only that windows had suddenly shattered on them and houses several blocks from the site were on fire.

Chilling: A chemical trailer sits among the remains of a fertilizer plant burning after the explosion last week

Chilling: A chemical trailer sits among the remains of a fertilizer plant burning after the explosion last week

Aid: 911 calls reveal the panic of emergency responders that they are running out of people to help them

Aid: 911 calls reveal the panic of emergency responders that they are running out of people to help them

Firefighters and EMTs would account for 10 of 14 people killed, and more than 200 people in the town of 2,800 would be counted as injured.

State and federal investigators continued combing the site Monday looking for the cause of the blast so powerful it registered as small earthquake. They had found the center of the explosion a day earlier, but not the fire's starting point.

Recordings show fears ran rampant among those who called 911 last Wednesday night.

One woman who glanced outside and saw the mushroom cloud that erupted from the blast could be heard shouting: 'Get out of the house. Get out,' to those around her. 'There's a freaking cloud. Look at that!'

An off-duty firefighter concerned about the air called a second time to say he was leaving with his family. A man wearing an ankle monitor told a dispatcher as he drove that he was fleeing the chemicals.

 

Investigators later assured residents the town's air was not toxic.

Calls from those further away relate terror of the unknown. Dispatchers asked callers to take deep breaths and repeat the unintelligible.

'My ambulance station just completely exploded! I need as many trucks as you can send this way'

EMS supervisor, 911 call

'Something happened out here,' a crying 83-year-old woman tells the operator, her voice quavering. 'Our house exploded or something. There was a big explosion and then our house is just destroyed.

'We're all ok, but my God, what has happened?' she said. 'I'm scared to death.'

Residents and dispatchers soon realized the enormity of the situation. One woman who called about a house burning on her street was asked if she lived close to the fertilizer plant. But she said she was several blocks away.

Less than five minutes after the first explosion call, dispatchers also knew West's own emergency resources were severely hampered.

'Listen to me, my ambulance station just completely exploded,' a West EMS supervisor can be heard saying on one call. 'I've got a nursing home and an ambulance station and an air evac. I need as many ... trucks as you can send this way.'

'The roof completely collapsed on the building. I'm doing a walk through now. I think we got everybody out,' he said. 'I don't have radio communications, I have lost my repeater.'

The blast left the city with one functioning ambulance.

An EMT training class was in the building that evening. The trainees already had passed their practical exam, so they left the class to go help, said Dr. George Smith, West EMS's medical director.

Four of the 18 in that class died. 'Every one of them were friends of mine,' Smith said.

Smith now carries a photo on his phone that shows a huge pile of debris, part of what used to be the West Rest Haven nursing home, where he also is medical director. The home sat between the ambulance building and the fertilizer plant.

 

'I was under that,' Smith said of the collapsed roof in the photo. His face bears scrapes and scratches from the night.

Smith and others managed to get all of the about 130 residents out. One man later died, not from injuries but his existing medical conditions, Smith said.

A woman whose mother-in-law was a resident told a 911 dispatcher they needed flashlights to help find the injured.

'We've got old people, they're bleeding, they've got glass,' she said. 'This rest home is completely demolished.'

Injured residents of an assisted living facility next door were moved to the front porch.

'My people are at the assisted living, three workers and my 11 residents and they're all bleeding,' another 911 caller said. 'They're trying to take care of the bleeding but nobody has any medical attention over there right now.'

 

On the mend: Five days after the fertilizer plant explosion, a flag flies from a damaged home as the damaged West Intermediate School is seen in the distance

One man who called twice from about a 1/2-mile south of the plant said he had dug three women out of a collapsed house.

'Hurry, they're bleeding bad,' he said.

Help was coming, but from a distance. Dispatchers told callers they were bringing in fire trucks from elsewhere. One dispatcher had the pleasant surprise of being offered medical professionals.

'I have several people that are willing to go help, medical personnel, nurses and such, do you all still need help?' one woman offered. 'Can they go help with the triage and such?'

'That would be perfect,' the dispatcher said. 'We need as many medical people as we can get.'

Investigators search for clues at West Fertilizer Co. blast epicenter

Dallas News by Brandon Formby 22 April 2013 at 04:24 (BST)

State and federal  investigators on Sunday began their  first in-depth look at the cratered epicenter of a fertilizer plant explosion that killed at least 14 people, including about 10 volunteer firefighters and the residents who tried to help them extinguish a fire at the site.

Investigators said their priority is to piece together how firefighters responded, what tactics they used to fight the fire and where the men were when they died. They want to determine what started the fire, what triggered the blast and what chemicals were kept at the plant.

“That’s what we’re going to be doing today, for the next couple days, is getting in the hole and start digging that out and see what transpired to cause this devastation in this area,” said Robert Champion.
The special agent-in-charge for the federal Bureau  of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was among scores of state and federal officials scouring the site. Among other things, they’ll try to determine what chemicals were stored at the  site.

“We’re optimistic that we’ll be able to,” said Assistant Texas Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner, whose agency is leading the investigation into the firefighters’ deaths.

The West Fertilizer Co. and Adair Grain were storing at least 540,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, an extremely combustible compound, as recently as last year, according to state records. Ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, is also used in explosives for mining, road-building and other commercial uses.

Investigators declined to say where the blast occurred among the 11 buildings on the 10-acre West Fertilizer site. Officials also declined to provide the dimensions of the crater.

“I can’t get into any specifics on this,” Champion said.

It was unclear Sunday whether the West Volunteer Fire Department’s 33 members knew what chemicals were inside the building. Five of the department’s members died in the blast. Others who were fighting the fire included an off-duty Dallas Fire-Rescue firefighter, members of departments from nearby cities and civilians who tried to help.

Damaging shockwaveThe explosion set off a shockwave that shook the town, damaging buildings in about a 37-block area.

“The easiest way to describe it is to think of a wave going out,” said Kistner.

Mangled and melted
Four mangled metal structures at the plant could be seen sticking up from behind a berm where a Union Pacific rail line runs north through town. The berm obstructed a view of the entire site, including the crater.
Union Pacific crews could be seen fixing damaged railroad tracks that have kept trains from moving north and south since Wednesday night. The blast was so hot that it pushed one rail into the other and welded them together.