Huge Explosion at Texas Fertilizer Plant 422
A massive explosion took place around 8:50pm ET at a fertilizer plant in a small town in Texas. The cause of the explosion is not precisely known, but the plant was on fire beforehand. The casualty reports are tentative and expected to rise, but two people are dead and over 150 are injured. Firefighters responding to the initial fire are unaccounted for. Over a thousand residents have been evacuated from their homes. Officials are worried about the volatility of another tank at the plant, but also about the potential damage from exposure to anhydrous ammonia. The blast was heard in Dallas, 75 miles away. "There are lots of houses that are leveled within a two-block radius. A lot of other homes are damaged as well outside that radius." A brief YouTube video shows the explosion of the plant.
Re:How Tragic (Score:5, Informative)
As always it likely would have been at the time. Then as the town expanded the plant would have been suddenly across the road. We've gone through the battles with town planners near a refinery here in Brisbane for the same reason. It's apparently prime land, yeah 500m from a 50t supply of HF acid.
Re:20 years passed (Score:5, Informative)
From what i was reading there was a small fire at the plant... Fire dept called... They put it out.
Some time later it flared up again and got way out of control. fast. And the local fire dept had no idea what they were doing on such a scale... (volunteers) And were in there when it went bang.
This is a town of about 3000 people... so... yeah. middle of nowhere.
Re:20 years passed (Score:5, Informative)
Nice spin.
Objectively speaking, the Waco incident was needless as it was. 1) What was being done at the compound was not illegal and amounts to government harrassment. 2) The government tends to be quite full of itself to the point that when someone pushes back, they tend to lose control.
For another example of such, do a search on "active duty soldier illegally disarmed and arrested" and especially find the Youtube video while it's still up. A couple of cops literally claimed they were above the law and one insisted he was enforcing the will of the people and it didn't matter what the law says.
But this is rather off-topic you know?
Anyway, I watched the video -- impressive. The blast was amazingly powerful and the child, despite being scared to death, handled herself pretty well too. I think the end game on this story is that it was industrial safety gone wrong. It happens too often.
Wikipedia has a page of ammonium nitrate disasters (Score:5, Informative)
Here [wikipedia.org], listing 24 previous disasters, the largest of which [wikipedia.org] was also in Texas. You'd think they, of all places, would know to keep large quantities of ammonium nitrate away from population centers (or vice versa).
Scarily, some of those disasters were from when a large quantity of ammonium nitrate powder had solidified and people tried to break it up with explosives.
The news reports I'm seeing don't actually say it was an ammonium nitrate explosion in this case, although it seems a reasonable supposition.
Re:20 years passed (Score:2, Informative)
Comments like this reminds us why you're called anonymous cowards.
Re:Why are these stories on /.? (Score:5, Informative)
Since when were tech and computers synonyms?
Chemical engineering is tech, moron.
Re:20 years passed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Coincidence? (Score:3, Informative)
Unlikely. Factory fires (This started off as a fire) happen all the time. This one was just unfortunate enough to happen where a metric shit tonne of amonium nitrate happened to be.
This wasn't an "unfortunate" accident. This was the result pure unabashed incompetence and greed. It's not like we don't know how far to space apart caches of volatile stuff having a high energy density in order to prevent massive explosions like this. For fuck's sake, do you think even the morons who sign up for the military would put ammo reserves all in one giant pile for safe keeping? No, that's fucking stupid. Stupid and a bit less expensive, but mostly stupid. The fire was an accident, but the explosion was caused by Corporate Negligence.
Re:20 years passed (Score:4, Informative)
You make it sound like any fertilizer will work in any situation as a "one size fits all" position. That isn't how you grow plants, which needs a much more balanced approach and several different kinds of chemicals. It doesn't matter if they are produced in a factory or grown from manure in your back yard.... it is the same thing. Nitrates are one of those key ingredients that plants need in order to grow, and depending on soil conditions and the species of plant you are growing it may need those kind of fertilizers.
In fact, in earlier times people would literally sell their cess pool contents (not really septic tanks, but the same general construction) to Nitrate manufacturers for the purpose of extracting the Nitrogen compounds to be used in explosives. Cheaper ways of getting that accomplished can be had today, but in theory you could use the stuff that is flowing out of your toilet if you cared.
Re:How Tragic (Score:4, Informative)
No, the fertilizer is explosive.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disasters [wikipedia.org] for examples. In particular, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster [wikipedia.org] .
Re: How Tragic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:20 years passed (Score:5, Informative)
A standoff meaning the people pushed back against tyranny and harrassment. What made it a stand off was that the notion that the government players could not and would not admit defeat. Once they start down a path, they can never ever back down and that's for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which is to maintain the perception that they never lose under any circumstances. Right vs wrong and Legal vs Illegal was never going to see any discussion in a court room once the chain of events got started.
If they wanted him in a court room, they had many other opportunities to snatch him up away from his arms and his bretheren.
At the end of the day, the government's case was never made, many assertions blaming the victims have been debunked and the teeth of the ATF have been all but removed.
I'd say proof of fscking-up is well established here.
Re:20 years passed (Score:2, Informative)
On March 16, 2013, my son and I were hiking along country roads among pastures and fields with my 15-year old son to help him earn his hiking merit badge. I always enjoy these father/son hikes because it gives me time alone with my son. As I always do when we go on these hikes and walks, I took my trusty rifle with me as there are coyotes, wild hogs, and cougars in our area. In Texas, it is legal to openly carry a rifle or shotgun as long as you do so in a manner that isn't calculated to cause alarm. In other words, you can't walk around waving your rifle at people. I always carry my rifle slung across my chest dangling, not holding it in my hands. At about the 5 mile mark of our hike, a voice behind us asked us to stop and the officer motioned for us to approach him. He got out of his car and met us a few feet later. He asked us what we were doing and I explained that we were hiking for my son's merit badge. He then asked me what I'm doing with the rifle, to which I responded in a calm manner, "Does it matter, officer? Am I breaking the law?" At that point, the officer grabbed my rifle without warning or indication. He didn't ask for my rifle and he didn't suggest he would take it from me. He simply grabbed it. This startled me and I instantly pulled back - the rifle was attached to me - and I asked what he thought he was doing because he's not taking my rifle. He then pulled his service pistol on me and told me to take my hands off the weapon and move to his car, which I complied with. He then slammed me into the hood of his car and I remembered I had a camera on me (one of the requirements of the hiking merit badge is to document your hikes). This video is the rest of that encounter. Up to this point, I am not told why I am being stopped, why he tried to disarm me, or even that I'm under arrest. We did not set out that Saturday morning to "make a point" or cause problems. Our goal was to complete a 10-mile hike and return home without incident. My son chose a route that away from populated areas but near our home. The arresting officer is Officer Steve Ermis and the supervisor is Sergeant Minnicks of the Temple Police Department. If you agree this was a gross act of exceeded authority, please help me fight these charges: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/2nd-amendment-legal-defense-fund/x/2679348 [indiegogo.com]
Re:Bah (Score:5, Informative)
People will never agree about what constitutes news for nerds, but the following should be pretty much common ground:
* Things that go beep.
* Things that go boom.
Re:20 years passed (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with the "resisting arrest" is that he is ALLOWED that by law if the LEOs aren't operating in a legal manner- even to the point of using deadly force if needed. See the Supreme Court decision on John Bad Elk v. United States - 177 U.S. 529 (1900) [justia.com] for more details there.
The LEOs violated 18 USC 242 [cornell.edu] and should be decorating a jail cell awaiting trial for the FELONIES they commited, caught on video. Since we're talking a deprivation of rights involving firearms if it were enforced, they'd be facing up to 10 years in a Fed Pen.
Re:20 years passed (Score:4, Informative)