What Happened in West, Texas

With all of the coverage of tragic and bizarre events in Boston this week, a calamity of size and scope several degrees greater took place in a small town called West, Texas, Population just under 3,000. Many people have seen the story, or at least the spectacular fire ball of the explosion at the fertilizer plant we are told was felt 50 miles away. Little has been reported about the cause of the tragedy in West that left 14 dead, eleven of whom were first responders. Five members of the 28-strong force of volunteer firefighters are dead.

A story that should have garnered far more attention barely registers on the radar of most Americans. This is so because up in Boston two men with an abundance of bad intentions, matched only by their severely lacking sense of humanity, chose to flame out in a ritualistic nihilism.  Every news resource in the country has been focused on Boston and that is understandable, but that has obscured a far more deadly and in ways more disturbing series of events.

The factory that exploded, the West Fertilizer Company was owned by Adair Grain, Inc. They have been in business since 1961, and Donald Adair, the company’s owner, actually lived in West.

To put the size of the calamity in some perspective a local TV reporter noted that the Oklahoma City bombing was precipitated with the use of 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a little more than two tons. The Washington Post reported that 270 tons were ignited at the factory. In addition to the death toll, every house within a ½ mile radius of the factory is reported to be severely damaged.  Hundreds of homes are damaged or destroyed as is the small town’s downtown business sector.

The size of the fertilizer operation should have made the factory a focus of interest of OSHA, the EPA, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but the factory failed to notify either the EPA or the DHS that it housed 270 tons of Ammonium Nitrate the explosive accelerant which caused the catastrophe.  OSHA last inspected the factory in 1985. The EPA did an inspection in 2006, and fined the firm a paltry $2,300.

Reuters reported that the EPA notification was not a legal requirement, but in a sign of how priorities have shifted, the DHS notice was. The factory did inform the State of Texas as required by state law. However that information was not passed onto Federal authorities by the State of Texas and it does not appear states are required to do so by law.

It remains to be seen whether the local Fire Department understood the extreme danger they were facing as the battled a fire at the plant before the explosion. The requirements of Texas law are in place specifically for the protection of first responders and the edification of communities. However, the rules require only notification to the state and more than 65,000 businesses file reports in Texas. This raises questions as to whether the whole system provides any layer of safety for communities or the first responders in place to protect them.

Much has been made of the resilience of citizens of Boston, Watertown, and all of eastern Massachusetts and their response to the mindless violence perpetuated by two nihilistic brothers.  Most of us feel that Boston will stand strong, and recover from these events. We can hope that the Boston Marathon next year will be a celebration of the spirit of the community and its defiance to of those that would try to bludgeon it into cowering submission.

Tragically, there is far less certainty for the citizens of West. The factory, actually more of a distribution center was undoubtedly the biggest single employer in the small town. Unlike Boston there is no infrastructure to fall back on, and maybe as importantly no reporter like the Boston Globe’s Kevin Cullen,  to tell this story. West is decimated. As of yesterday residents of 200 homes were still not being allowed to survey the damage on their properties. The USA Today reported that of four schools “only one of which survived unscathed. The elementary school on the other side of town was fine, but the intermediate school for fourth and fifth grades, the middle school and the high school were all closed because of damage.”

Both the Federal and Texas State governments have pledged an aggressive response and the community is working hard to recover. The notoriously anti-government Texas Senator Ted Cruz is pleading for Federal help. It remains to be seen whether this story will ever rise above that of “tragic accident”. What facts I managed to gathered here were gleaned from more than a dozen articles covering small elements of the story. I wonder about a nation that can focus so much anger, so much rage, and so much commitment to get to the bottom of the events in Boston, and yet we muster so little interest over the events in West.

Already dozens of reporters have converged on the home of the father, Makhachkala, the Capital of Dagetstan, deep in the Caucasus, along the Caspian Sea. News gathering resources are abundantly available to make that trip, but those to make a trek to a small town, 20 miles from Waco and 80 miles from Dallas, are in short supply.

Am I the only one who finds the events in West to be compelling and worrisome? Does anyone care to know if shortcuts were taken in the name of commerce and profits?  Did Texas, in its efforts to be the most pro-business of pro-business states, look the other way and so avoid any examination of the dangers of the factory in West?  Do these kinds of facilities pose any special concerns in the arc of terror events which have become the story of our lives? We know that EPA, DHS, and OSHA, are all responsible for assuring the safety and security of such facilities. Do any of them have adequate resources to fulfill that responsibility?  Does anyone care? Will we ever find out what happened in West, Texas?