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.

Plant 'ignored safety rules'

The Independent 21 April 2013

The fertiliser plant that exploded four days ago, 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 need to be reported to the US 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 department about the potentially explosive fertiliser as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate unaware of potential danger. This claim has not been formally confirmed.
Fertiliser plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400lb 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 US congressman and several safety experts have now called into question whether incomplete disclosure or regulatory gridlock may have contributed to the disaster. "It seems this manufacturer was wilfully off the grid," Bennie Thompson, a senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said. "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."

Company officials did not return calls seeking comment on its handling of chemicals and reporting practices. Late on Friday, the plant's owner, Donald Adair, released a statement expressing sorrow over the incident, but saying West Fertilizer would have little further comment while it co-operated with investigators. "This tragedy will continue to hurt deeply for generations to come," Mr Adair said.

Failure to report significant volumes of hazardous chemicals at a site can lead the DHS to fine or shut down fertiliser operations. Though the DHS has the authority to carry out spot inspections at facilities, it has a small budget for that activity and only a "small number" of field auditors, according to someone familiar with the agency's monitoring regime.

Firms are responsible for reporting their volumes of ammonium nitrate and other volatile chemicals to the DHS, which then helps to measure plant risks and devise security plans based on them. Since the agency never received a so-called top-screen report from West Fertilizer, the facility was not regulated or monitored by the DHS under its CFAT standards, which are largely designed to prevent sabotage of sites and to keep chemicals from falling into criminal hands.

The DHS focuses "specifically on enhancing security to reduce the risk of terrorism at certain high-risk chemical facilities", said a spokesman, Peter Boogaard. "The West Fertilizer Co facility in West, Texas is not currently regulated under the CFATS programme."

The West Fertilizer facility was subject to other safety programmes, spread across at least seven state and federal agencies, a patchwork of regulation that critics say makes it difficult to ensure thorough oversight. An expert in chemical safety standards said the two major federal government programmes that are supposed to ensure chemical safety in industry – led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) – do not regulate the handling or storage of ammonium nitrate. That task falls largely to the DHS and the local and state agencies that oversee emergency planning and response. More than 4,000 sites nationwide are subject to the DHS programme.

"This shows the enforcement routine has to be more robust, on local, state and federal levels," said Sam Mannan, a director of the process safety centre at Texas A&M University. "If information is not shared with agencies, which appears to have happened here, then the regulations won't work."

Chemical safety experts and local officials suspect last week's blast was caused when ammonium nitrate was set ablaze. Authorities suspect the disaster was an industrial accident, but haven't ruled out other possibilities. The fertiliser is considered safe when stored properly, but can explode at high temperatures and when it reacts with other substances. "I strongly believe that if the proper safeguards were in place, as they are at thousands of CFATS-regulated plants across the country, the loss of life and destruction could have been far less extensive," said Mr Thompson. A blaze was reported shortly before a massive explosion levelled dozens of homes and blew out an apartment building.

A small lorry packed with ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil exploded to raze the Oklahoma federal building in 1995. Another liquid gas fertiliser kept on the West Fertilizer site, anhydrous ammonia, is subject to DHS reporting and can explode under extreme heat. Wednesday's blast heightens concerns that regulations governing ammonium nitrate and other chemicals – present in at least 6,000 depots and plants in farming states across the country – are insufficient. The facilities serve farmers in rural areas that typically lack stringent land zoning controls, with many of the facilities near residential areas.

Apart from the DHS, the West Fertilizer site was subject to a hotchpotch of regulation. But the material is exempt from some US chemicals safety programmes. For instance, the EPA's Risk Management Program (RMP) requires firms to submit plans describing their handling of certain hazardous chemicals. Ammonium nitrate is not among the substances that must be reported.

In its RMP filings, West Fertilizer reported its anhydrous ammonia storage and said it did not expect a fire or explosion to affect the facility. And it had not installed safeguards such as blast walls around the plant.
A separate EPA programme, known as Tier II, requires reporting of ammonium nitrate and other hazardous chemicals stored above certain quantities. Tier II reports are submitted to local fire departments and emergency planning and response groups to help them plan for and respond to chemical disasters. In Texas, the reports are collected by the Department of State Health Services. Over the past seven years, according to reports West Fertilizer filed, 2012 was the only time the company stored ammonium nitrate at the facility. It reported having 270 tons on site.

"That's just a God-awful amount of ammonium nitrate," said Bryan Haywood, the owner of a hazardous chemical consulting firm in Milford, Ohio. "If they were doing that, I would hope they would have got outside help."

Mr Haywood, who has been a safety engineer for 17 years, reviewed West Fertilizer's Tier II sheets from the past six years. He said he found several items that should have triggered the attention of local emergency planning authorities – most notably the sudden appearance of a large amount of ammonium nitrate in 2012. "That would have been a red flag for me," he said.

Plant stored 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally spark federal government oversight

The Guardian 20 April 2013 19.39 BST

The plant was last inspected for safety in 2011, according to a Risk Management Plan filed with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The company, which has fewer than 10 employees, had provided no contingency plan to the EPA for a major explosion or fire at the site. It told the EPA in 2011 that a typical emergency scenario at the facility that holds anhydrous ammonia could result in a small release in gas form.

The EPA fined the company $2,300 in 2006 for failing to implement a risk management plan.
Last year, the fertilizer plant stored 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the US Department of Homeland Security.

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 required, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate - which can also be used in bomb making - unaware of any danger there.
For the farmers who grow corn, wheat, milo and cotton in the area, the fertilizer plant was critical to their operations. Not only did the plant mix fertilizer for farmers - selling it by the ton - and deliver it if needed, but it also had a steady business in sprayers and other equipment for applying the chemicals.

It was a place where farmers gathered for coffee and a chat, and a place where friends and family worked together.

Talk of fines and safety violations at the plant have raised the ire of some who did business there and who do not know now whether to be angry, just sad, or both.

"I know a lot of people are putting the blame on it," Danny Mynar, who farms about 2,000 acres outside West, said of the plant. "But it served a lot of ranchers and farmers."

Small fires erupt in West, Texas after fertilizer plant explosion

WABC TV by Christopher Sherman 20 April 2013

WEST, Texas -- Gas tanks damaged by a massive explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant are leaking and have triggered small fires that are keeping displaced residents from returning to see what's left of their homes, officials said Saturday. 

The initial blast at the West Fertilizer Co. on Wednesday killed 14 people, injured more than 200 others and damaged or completely destroyed at least 80 homes. The new fires at the site are small, have been contained and have not caused any further injuries, said Bryce Reed, a paramedic and spokesman for the town of West.

The news was another setback for evacuated residents who have waited anxiously to return and assess what remains after the blast. Many are hoping to find key documents such as insurance papers and family records to help with recovery. Others simply hope to reclaim any belongings that might be buried under splintered homes.

Reed said there are dozens of portable, white tanks at the site that are typically filled with anhydrous ammonia from larger storage tanks for when farmers request them. The tanks get weak when they are exposed to fire, he said, and bleed.

"The whole place is still on fire, smoldering, all that kind of stuff. It could spark up," Reed told a hotel lobby crammed with residents waiting to get beyond police blockades to their homes. But, he said, "there isn't really enough structure left to light up and burn."

The tanks are attached to plows pulled by tractors and feed streams of the chemical into the ground as the plow passes to fertilize. Reed said they resemble large, horizontal propane tanks, and told residents to imagine a very big hot water heater.

Failed To Disclose It Had Unsafe Stores Of Explosive Substance

Huffington Post 20 April 2013 at 07:32 (BST)
(Reuters story)

NEW YORK, April 20 (Reuters) - 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."

Failure to report significant volumes of hazardous chemicals at a site can lead the DHS to fine or shut down fertilizer operations, a person familiar with the agency's monitoring regime said. Though the DHS has the authority to carry out spot inspections at facilities, it has a small budget for that and only a "small number" of field auditors, the person said.

Firms are responsible for self reporting the volumes of ammonium nitrate and other volatile chemicals they hold to the DHS, which then helps measure plant risks and devise security and safety plans based on them.

Since the agency never received any so-called top-screen report from West Fertilizer, the facility was not regulated or monitored by the DHS under its CFAT standards, largely designed to prevent sabotage of sites and to keep chemicals from falling into criminal hands.

The DHS focuses "specifically on enhancing security to reduce the risk of terrorism at certain high-risk chemical facilities," said agency spokesman Peter Boogaard. "The West Fertilizer Co. facility in West, Texas is not currently regulated under the CFATS program."

The West Fertilizer facility was subject to other reporting, permitting and safety programs, spread across at least seven state and federal agencies, a patchwork of regulation that critics say makes it difficult to ensure thorough oversight.

An expert in chemical safety standards said the two major federal government programs that are supposed to ensure chemical safety in industry - led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) - do not regulate the handling or storage of ammonium nitrate. That task falls largely to the DHS and the local and state agencies that oversee emergency planning and response.

More than 4,000 sites nationwide are subject to the DHS program.

"This shows that the enforcement routine has to be more robust, on local, state and federal levels," said the expert, Sam Mannan, director of process safety center at Texas A&M University. "If information is not shared with agencies, which appears to have happened here, then the regulations won't work."


HODGEPODGE OF REGULATION

Chemical safety experts and local officials suspect this week's blast was caused when ammonium nitrate was set ablaze. Authorities suspect the disaster was an industrial accident, but haven't ruled out other possibilities.

The fertilizer is considered safe when stored properly, but can explode at high temperatures and when it reacts with other substances.

"I strongly believe that if the proper safeguards were in place, as are at thousands of (DHS) CFATS-regulated plants across the country, the loss of life and destruction could have been far less extensive," said Rep. Thompson.

A blaze was reported shortly before a massive explosion leveled dozens of homes and blew out an apartment building.

Wednesday's blast heightens concerns that regulations governing ammonium nitrate and other chemicals - present in at least 6,000 depots and plants in farming states across the country - are insufficient. The facilities serve farmers in rural areas that typically lack stringent land zoning controls, many of the facilities sit near residential areas.

Apart from the DHS, the West Fertilizer site was subject to a hodgepodge of regulation by the EPA, OSHA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Office of the Texas State Chemist.

But the material is exempt from some mainstays of U.S. chemicals safety programs. For instance, the EPA's Risk Management Program (RMP) requires companies to submit plans describing their handling and storage of certain hazardous chemicals. Ammonium nitrate is not among the chemicals that must be reported.

In its RMP filings, West Fertilizer reported on its storage of anhydrous ammonia and said that it did not expect a fire or explosion to affect the facility, even in a worst-case scenario. And it had not installed safeguards such as blast walls around the plant.

A separate EPA program, known as Tier II, requires reporting of ammonium nitrate and other hazardous chemicals stored above certain quantities. Tier II reports are submitted to local fire departments and emergency planning and response groups to help them plan for and respond to chemical disasters. In Texas, the reports are collected by the Department of State Health Services. Over the last seven years, according to reports West Fertilizer filed, 2012 was the only time the company stored ammonium nitrate at the facility.

It reported having 270 tons on site.

"That's just a god awful amount of ammonium nitrate," said Bryan Haywood, the owner of a hazardous chemical consulting firm in Milford, Ohio. "If they were doing that, I would hope they would have gotten outside help."

In response to a request from Reuters, Haywood, who has been a safety engineer for 17 years, reviewed West Fertilizer's Tier II sheets from the last six years. He said he found several items that should have triggered the attention of local emergency planning authorities - most notably the sudden appearance of a large amount of ammonium nitrate in 2012.

"As a former HAZMAT coordinator, that would have been a red flag for me," said Haywood, referring to hazardous materials. (Additional reporting by Anna Driver in Houston, Timothy Gardner and Ayesha Rascoe in Washington, and Selam Gebrekidan and Michael Pell in New York; Editing by Mary Milliken and Robert Birsel)

Twelve bodies found

BBC Website 19 April 2013 at 15:29

Twelve bodies have been recovered from the site of Wednesday's deadly blast at a fertiliser plant in the US state of Texas, officials say.

About 200 people are now thought to have been injured in the blast.

Earlier, the town's mayor said he believed four firefighters who attended the original fire were among the dead, though this has not been confirmed.

Dozens of buildings were destroyed by the blast in the town of West, near Waco.

The explosion produced a tremor similar to a small earthquake.

There is no indication that the blast and a fire which preceded it were anything other than industrial accidents, according to police.

However, they have said that the site is being treated as a crime scene.

Who the Heck Insured This Place?

Property Casualty 360 by Chad Hemenway 19 April 2013

It hasn’t been easy to find who provided insurance for the West Fertilizer Co.—and maybe there’s a reason for that.

Call after call—to agencies and associations such as the Texas Department of Insurance, Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, and the Insurance Council of Texas—came up empty.
They don’t know, they say. Companies aren’t required to file insurance information with them. They’re wondering and asking around as well.

The Environmental Protection Agency said to call the plant for information regarding insurance. Not particularly easy in this case since it no longer exists.

Owners of the plant could not be reached for comment.

We called the only insurance agency in the small rural town of about 2,800—Muska Insurance Services.
Tommy Muska, the mayor of West, Texas, owns the agency. He bought it from his father, who bought it from the wife of a man who started the agency in 1920 because he owned and operated a local cotton gin and wanted to insure the cotton bales.

A man who answered the phone at the agency, who said he was a volunteer, told me, “Mr. Muska is very busy. I’m sorry; he can’t come to the phone.”

Insurers are on the scene, say the industry, and are helping policyholders with claims.
But who insured West Fertilizer Co.? And as we find out what types of incredibly volatile chemical compounds were stored at the facility—coupled with the fact so many residences and two schools (the high school isn’t far away, either) are so close—how was this plant underwritten?

We’re potentially talking tons of ammonium nitrate—the same type of stuff Timothy McVeigh used to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995—stored within quick walking distance to a middle school entrance.

The explosion April 17 is said to be hundreds of times stronger than the blast McVeigh fabricated.
The cause of the explosion remains under investigation, it should be noted, but authorities say ammonium nitrate was found at the scene.

Reportedly the plant’s safety history is mixed, at best. It was built in 1962, so the facility was “grandfathered” and didn’t have to adhere to some state and federal standards until someone thought it was a good idea to change that.

The EPA in 2006 fined West Fertilizer for failing to update its risk management plan but there haven’t been any more recent violations.

It is impossible for me to imagine an insurance company sending an investigator and/or underwriter to an apparent outdated facility like this and coming out with a signed contract for coverage.

It just doesn’t add up. Not when all I’ve heard recently, at least from the specialty insurers I’ve spoken to on other high-risks, are statements like, “We send someone to look at every site,” and “We have underwriters that come from this particular industry and this is all they do—they just look at these risks.”
I'm interested in hearing from industry experts and risk managers on this topic, and I encourage you to contact me.

Additionally, the truth is it is entirely possible in Texas for employers not to provide workers compensation insurance. These so-called “nonsubscribers” take the risk (and lose important legal protections). About 20 percent of employees in Texas are employed by nonsubscribers.

So, there indeed might be a very good reason it is difficult to find out who insured this place. I just don't want to think about that possibility.

Is Anhydrous Ammonia flammable

A forum debate started at My Firefighter Nation  in September 2008

This discussion focuses on Anhydrous Ammonia because firefighters continue to get injured or killed in facilities using a gas that should be considered a flammable gas but in the United States, ammonia is considered a non-flammable gas. Take a look at most online MSDS sheets and they will list the flammable range for anhydrous ammonia as 16-25% which is data that was researched and published in the 1950's. Don't you think that our technology to test chemicals has gotten a little more sophisticated in the past 50 years? At firefighter's expense, the NFPA has turned their back on updating their data to reflect more recent testing data that provided more than sufficient data to document and prove that anhydrous ammonia is indeed a flammable gas. After readingt this post, you will know why.


In 1984, one firefighter was killed and a second was burned over 72% of his body in an anhydrous ammonia explosion and fire that occurred in Shreveport, LA. Ammonia was leaking inside a cold storage building. While firefighters were working inside wearing Level A chemical protection and oxygen re-breather SCBA’s, the ammonia reached an ignition source. The fire department used the DOT ERG as a guide for how to mitigate the incident and it resulted in tragedy.

Regulations

USA Today by Chuck Raasch and Sharon Jayson 19 April 2013 at 04:15 (BST)


Feed and fertilizer distributors such as West Fertilizer Co. are registered with the Texas Feed and Fertilizer Control Service, which also inspects them. West is one of 592 such establishments registered with the agency, created in 1899, says Tim Herrman, the Texas State Chemist who directs the service based in College Station

On its web page, the Feed and Fertilizer Control Service shows 14 feed and fertilizer investigators, each responsible for certain counties in the state. Texas has 254 counties.

"It's a complex facility," Herrman said of West Fertilizer. "Each of the different types of structures could fall under a different regulatory authority. It has fertilizer and grain. And they're also licensed as a feed establishment because of the grain tanks."

According to the service's 2012 annual report on fertilizer distributors, West Fertilizer had two chemical-related violations and one registration violation, from September 2011, to September 2012.
"We are in the firms multiple times in a year. We were in this firm just recently," Herrman says, declining to elaborate on how recently. "It's very clearly defined in the law and rules what they're obliged to do, and we make sure they do all of it."

Attorney Terrence Welch of Richardson, Texas, an expert in Texas zoning laws, said it's not surprising that homes and schools would be located near industrial facilities in small towns, many of which grew up around railroad tracks.

"Even though cities have zoning powers, the houses have been there sometimes long before cities adopted zoning ordinances," he said, "I grew up in the Midwest, and it's the same way there, too."
As to why a school may have been near the fertilizer facility, spokesman DeEtta Culbertson of the Texas Education Agency in Austin says there are no state regulations about school locations.

"It's a local issue," she said.

HOWEVER
A quick look at the website for the Feed and Fertilizer Control Service (cited above) suggested that regulations is focussed on hazards to animal and human health through the use of fertilizer. There seems to be some controls on who can buy the material, but that is probably related to terrorism.  There is no mention of safety at storage and distribution sites such as the West site

Before and after images

Facinating comparison on Dallas News website 19 April at 00:50 (BST)

Possible water contamination

Tweet from KWTX News on 18 April 2013 at 23:18

EFFECTIVE NOW: City water customers of West, Texas are advised to boil their water before consumption. Questions? Call (254) 366-1503.

Plant in context

The Guardian by Tom Dart 18 April 2013 at 23:07

A glance at Google Maps will show you that modern housing sprouted extremely close to the plant, even though rural Texas rarely wants for space. "The fertilizer plant was out in the country and they just built around it when I guess they shouldn't have," Beaubien said.

Matt Nors never had any worries about the plant's location – quite the opposite, since agriculture is key to the local community. It only takes five minutes to drive through West and reach vast, gently undulating fields, speckled with ranches. "It's never been a concern. This was never even a thought, an issue," Nors said.

More about possible causes

The Guardian 18 April 2013 at 15:31

Guardian community coordinator Ruth Spencer reached out to commenter bigbobcolorado who is an industrial chemist. He has 35 years experience in fine chemicals manufacture and has worked as a plant manager at a facility that handled anhydrous ammonia. The West Fertilization fire that preceded the explosion is thought to have started in an anhydrous ammonia tank.
He shared some of his knowledge with Ruth in an email.

It seems clear that there was an initial fire before the explosion occurred. So the CSB investigation will probably identify how the fire was able to get near the bulk storage tanks holding anhydrous ammonia. Bulk storage tanks are normally protected by bunds/dykes or drainage systems that deflect or prevent burning materials accumulating underneath the tank.
The damage sustained indicates that a high energy explosion took place. In such events, a very high pressure wave is generated by the explosion that travels extremely rapidly through the surrounding environment resulting in catastrophic consequences over a large area. Such events usually involve large quantities of flammable vapor clouds which are constrained i.e. enclosed or confined. A BLEVE scenario as mentioned earlier would cause similar catastrophic consequences.

Another possible scenario is that flammable dust was ignited, but I have heard no mention of dust in any reporting so far.
Whatever the cause I fear the casualty numbers will increase. The only good news is that the event took place at night when the facility was closed, people were in bed and the adjacent school was closed.

What are chemical fertilizers, and why do we use them?

The Houston Chronicle by Eric Berger 18 April 2013

What is fertilizer made of?

A commonly manufactured fertilizer is ammonium nitrate, a chemical compound with the symbol NH4NO3. A white crystalline solid at room temperature, nitrogen forms about one-third of this compound. Ammonium nitrate is popular as a fertilizer because it is very soluble in the soil and the nitrate can move deep into the root zone under wet conditions.

Is ammonium nitrate explosive?

Under normal heating conditions no — ammonium nitrate decomposes into two gases, nitrous oxide and water vapor. However, when detonated it can decompose explosively. It is a common ingredient in AFNO, an explosive material used by industry today.

What about anhydrous ammonia?

Anhydrous ammonia — ammonia without water — is an efficient and widely used source of nitrogen fertilizer. It is relatively easy to apply by injection into the soil, and readily available. However, it must be stored under pressure in a liquid state. In gas form it can be set off by water.

So what happened in West?

It’s not entirely clear. It is possible that there was an accident of some kind that led to an explosion of ammonium nitrate, and that in an effort to control that fire, water used set off anhydrous ammonia. That could have led to a chain of explosions. This will all have to be determined in subsequent weeks of investigation. It is likely that this explosion will have a profound impact on federal regulations of chemical fertilizer manufacturing.

Possible causes

The Telegraph 18 April 2013 at 14:20

What could have caused the explosion? Tom Clarke, Channel 4 News's science editor looks at the ammonia:
The tanks of anhydrous ammonia at the West plant would have stored the liquid under high pressure. As a result of the fire, these tanks could rupture catastrophically causing a blast, says Prof Andrea Sella, a chemist at University College London.

However, video of the explosion, suggests the blast was much more violent than would be expected from a perssurised tank failing. "It looks to be a supersonic blast more likely to result from a detonation event," says Sella.

Another common type of fertiliser - ammonium nitrate - is notoriously explosive. It has caused some of the worst industrial accidents in history as well as being a favourite of home bomb makers.

Scale of devastation

The Guardian 18 April 2013 at 13:22

The explosion devastated a residential area nearby, including more than 50 houses, an apartment block and nursing home. The blast blew out doors and windows several miles away and was heard almost 50 miles away.

Ammonium nitrate disasters

There is a Wikipedia page listing 25 disasters (including the latest at West). First accident reported occurred 1918

• 1 Morgan, New Jersey, 1918 (Now Sayreville)
• 2 Kriewald, Germany, 1921
• 3 Oppau, Germany, 1921
• 4 Nixon, New Jersey, 1924 (Now Edison Township)
• 5 Muscle Shoals, Alabama, 1925
• 6 Rouen, France, 1940
• 7 Miramas, France, 1940
• 8 Tessenderlo, Belgium, 1942
• 9 Texas City, United States, 1947
• 10 Brest, France, 1947
• 11 Red Sea, 1954
• 12 Roseburg, Oregon, 1959
• 13 Traskwood, Arkansas, 1960
• 14 Kansas City, Missouri, 1988
• 15 Papua New Guinea, 1994
• 16 Port Neal, Iowa, 1994
• 17 Toulouse, France, 2001
• 18 Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, 2003
• 19 Barracas, Spain, 2004
• 20 Mihăileşti, Buzău, Romania, 2004
• 21 Ryongchŏn, North Korea, 2004
• 22 Estaca de Bares, Spain, 2007
• 23 Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico, 2007
• 24 Bryan, TX, United States, 2009
• 25 West, TX, United States, 2013

Previous complaints from neighbours

The Telegraph by By Damien McElroy 18 April 2013 at 11:00

Neighbours of the fertiliser plant in West, Texas that blew up in a devastating blast that injured and killed scores had complained as long ago as 2006 of a worrying smell of ammonia wafting from the facility.

Documents held by the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality said that a complaint of a "very bad" smell was lodged in June 2006.

Reports said the body had cited the plant for failure to obtain or qualify for a permit.

After subsequent routine inspections the Commission made construction of a wall between storage tanks of ammonia and the public road a condition of renewal. It said there was a risk of vehicles careering off the road and into the tanks.

But the body said the overall risk was low.

"The regional investigator described the area surrounding the facility as residential and farm land. There are two schools located within 3000 ft of this facility, however, the impact potential is described by the region as low," a report cited by the Dallas Morning News said. "The nearest off property receptor, a residence, is 350 ft from the plant."

The permit was then issued on December 12, 2006 when the Commission was happy with the work at the plant.

In the permit application lodged by the plant, West Fertiliser pledged to institute safety inspections for leaks at the tanks once each day and strictly regulate transfers of ammonia between the tanks. It also promised to limit storage levels to 85 per cent to maintain manageable vapour pressures. A water spray system was built to prevent accidental release of ammonia.

Estimate of between 5 and 15 deaths

The Guardian 10:53 am

This briefing, still going on, is from Sergeant W. Patrick Swanton from Waco’s police dept, who has spoken before. He's also said:
• There are three to five firefighters missing.
• Some homes near the centre of the blat have been "levelled".
• There is no indication yet of criminal involvement in the blast.
• There is not believed to be any hazard from smoke or air particles, and firefighters believe they have the blaze in the plant under control.

Waco police are giving another update at a press conference: they estimate the death toll could be between five and 15.

Up to 70 feared dead

The Telegraph By Chris Irvine 10:02AM BST 18 Apr 2013

Up to 70 people are feared dead after a massive explosion likened to a nuclear blast ripped through a fertiliser plant in West, near Waco, Texas.

"The whole steet has gone"

The Daily Mail by Helen Lawson 18 April 2013 09:03

Survivor tells how roof collapsed on his head then he clawed his way to safety after giant fertilizer plant blast

• 'The windows came in on me, the ceiling came in on me', one survivor says 
• The county sheriff in West, Texas, described the scene as 'a war zone' 
• Search goes on for missing residents and firefighters in West, Texas 
• Up to 15 people are feared dead and scores more are injured 
• 133 patients evacuated from the West Raven nursing home alone

A survivor of the Texas fertilizer plant blast has told how an entire street was destroyed in the explosion.

The bloodied man, believed to be a local doctor, said: 'The windows came in on me, the roof came in on me, the ceiling came in and I worked my way out to go get some more help.

'The ambulance station and the whole 1500 block of Stillmeadow is badly damaged, which is the closest street to it,' he told NBC News.

'My son lives there - he was on the second floor when it fell down, it would have fallen on him. That whole street is gone.'

About the site

Taken from Wipipedia at 08:48 on 18 April 2013

The plant is owned by Adair Grain Inc. Adair received an air quality permit as a fertilizer mixing and storage facilty from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in December 2006, issued after Adair was investigated for failure to secure a permit, when a neighbor complained about an ammonia smell coming from the plant. Adair reportedly stored 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, which along with nitric acid, is used to produce ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, pesticide, and rodenticide.

Many casualties in Texas Waco fertiliser plant blast

BBC Website  18 April 2013 Last updated at 08:24

 

Scores of people are injured and an unknown number are dead after a huge explosion at a fertiliser plant near Waco in the US state of Texas. 

Dozens of homes and buildings have been destroyed, and several are still on fire, after the West Fertilizer plant exploded at about 19:50 (00:50 GMT).

Some people are thought still to be trapped in buildings and a number of firefighters are reported missing.
Emergency services officials said ammonia may have caused the explosion.

It has been reported the company had 54,000lbs (20 tonnes) of anhydrous ammonia on site.
An official confirmed there were deaths, but could not give a figure.

Dean Wilson, of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a news conference that they were still conducting house-to-house searches.

He said the fire was still smouldering and that no firefighters were tackling it as there was the risk of further explosions.

Half the town had been evacuated, he added.

The Waco Tribune-Herald reported that firefighters had been trying to put out a fire at the plant when the explosion happened, and that some were among those injured.

The blast happened in West, a town of about 2,700 people some 20 miles (32km) north of Waco.

TV images showed streams of emergency vehicles descending on the site and ambulance crews using a nearby sports field as an emergency treatment area.

Glenn A Robinson, chief executive of Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, told CNN that his hospital had received 66 injured people including 38 who were seriously hurt.

He said the hospital was seeing "everything from orthopaedic injuries to patients that are experiencing serious blood loss".

McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said: "It's a lot of devastation. I've never seen anything like this. It looks like a war zone with all the debris."

Unconfirmed reports said a nursing home had collapsed in the explosion and some people were believed trapped inside.

Witness Debby Marak told the Associated Press news agency that she had seen smoke coming from the area near the plant and had driven over to see what was happening.

She said that when she arrived, two boys ran towards her screaming that the authorities had told them to leave because the fertiliser plant was going to explode.

 

The massive blast was heard from miles around

She said she drove a short distance before the blast happened.

"It was like being in a tornado," she said. "Stuff was flying everywhere. It blew out my windshield. It was like the whole earth shook."

Another resident told KWTX-TV that she heard several explosions from 13 miles (20km) away.
"It sounded like three bombs going off very close to us,'' said Lydia Zimmerman.


The Dallas Morning News reported that West Fertilizer had told the Environmental Protection Agency that it presented no risk of fire or explosion.

The newspaper said it had seen documents in which the plant said it stored large amounts of anhydrous ammonia, but the worst scenario envisaged was a release of ammonia gas that would harm no-one.