Latest report said Firefighters are missing.

 

Likely burried under rubble.

And apparently, the fumes have reached the town where my grandma lives. Which is about 30 mi away. I heard last night that DPS cleared out a 30 mi radius around West. That's almost Chernobyl like.

 

Staff in my office are currently running relief supplies today. Thank God it was 8pm.

Who the h%ll decided to build a fertilizer plant next to a school and a nursing home? And why did someone NOT stop them?



ON another topic:

Anyone have ay experience with this product? $750 for a combination TIG/Plasma seems too cheap....




http://austin.craigslist.org/tls/3667237375.html

 

I had just got my engine all back together after doing the plenum work, timing chain, water pump, oil pan gasket etc (first time tearing into my engine that far by myself). Then the moment came when I was going to crank the engine and hope she purred like a kitten. I turned the ignition to where all the power came, so far so good, heart was beating hoping I didn't mess something up, closed my eyes and turned the key a little bit more to crank the engine over and!.......nothing, wouldn't crank over. I tried again. Nothing. Thinking to myself why it wouldn't start, I started troubleshooting. First thing that came to mind was I had the starter out for getting the oil pan off, so I went to double check I connected everything there. Everything was fine there. I tried to crank over the engine again, nothing. I had plenty of battery power. Then came about 10 minutes where I was scratching my head, quadruple checking things, not understanding why I'm having this trouble, it should run! There I was, leaning against the driver side fender right by the fuse/relay box feeling defeated, thinking how I'll need to post my troubles here on the forum and get great ideas from all of you. Then, I glanced at the fuse/relay box while bowing my head in defeat when all of the sudden a memory of the very first thing I did before I started all this work came back to me (per Haynes manual request).....I pulled the ignition run fuse (or starter fuse can't remember what it's called). I opened up the box, saw the fuse laying there and slapped it back in. My heart started to pound again as I knew I had found my problem. Then came the moment of truth where I was about to find out if I did everything right....I turned the key to get all the power on, then turned it a little more and!.....alive came the heart of my truck! Sputtering as it tried to figure itself out, it finally purred like a kitten. Success! And that's my story, my long in depth story.

 

who needs to break their back and wear out their arms when you can use one of these instead?!



and yes: its a diesel! no turbo though...meh.

 

The plant has been there for 50 years.
The school and nursing home grew up around the PLANT. Not that other way around. It's not the plant's fault those houses and the school were there, that's the cities' fault.

 

I have been wondering the same thing since this story hit the news. You would think the smell and products the use would require a certain zoning.

 

^Please read my above post.

 

That's part of the problem. Environmental requirements here in Texas are close to that of a third world country in most of the state. (from http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madr...pa-it-had-no-r). They told EPA that there was NO risk of fire or explosion....REALLY?


West Texas Plant Told The EPA It Had 'No Risk' For Explosion

By Susie Madrak

I am so very tired of seeing the horrific results of three decades of deficit hawkery, which weakened the regulatory infrastructure of this country and results in completely preventable and massive tragedies like this. Let's start with the lax zoning requirements, which allowed such a high-risk enterprise smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
And the Chemical Safety Board, which was deployed to the West TX site last night, is chronically understaffed and inadequate because... you guessed it, it's underfunded by a Big Oil-friendly Congress! They get $10.5 million to regulate an industry with 170 major companies making 70,000 different chemicals, totaling $750 billion revenue. Thanks, Congress!
Then there's OSHA, which is supposed to protect workers in the workplace but is really more of a fig leaf. Do you know how many OSHA inspectors we have for the entire country -- more accurately, how many we don't? Six fertilizer plants were inspected by OSHA in the past five years. West Fertilizer was not one of them. (When West Texas was cited for OSHA violations in 1985, their fine was $30.)
Experts say for a country the size of the United States, we should have 12,000 OSHA inspectors. We have 2,220. And the fines are laughable.
So remember: This tragedy was completely preventable. We just didn't bother. Because Grover Norquist fights to keep that money out of government agencies and in the pockets of the 1%. Freedom!Ah, yes -- self reporting! The process pushed by Ronald Reagan to replace federal inspectors, who claimed companies would be honest because after all, who would want the liability costs of lying? Just about everyone, as it turns out.West Fertilizer Co. aka Adair Grain Inc. is owned/managed by Donald Adair, Tedd Uptmore and Wanda Adair, according to Lee Fang. Grain elevators are also prone to explosions. Seems like it might be a good idea to inspect all of their holdings. I wonder if it will happen. And I wonder if our lazy, complicit media will look at the larger picture.

 

You know, everything would have been fine if someone hadn't been smoking in the ammonia room...that's what started the initial fire.