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.
Detected by seismic network (Score:5, Interesting)
It was detected by seismic networks [usgs.gov]. Note that the most common reason for "earthquakes" at zero depth is a quarry explosion, so that's how they initially labeled it. They've since changed it to read simply "Explosion". Click the "did you feel it link" and you can see that some people felt it as if it were an earthquake. Strangely, they are north of the event. Either the waves propogated that way, or people south of the event saw the cloud and realized it was an explosion not a quake.
Fertilizer hazard underrated (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:20 years passed (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure it is. But there has just been a terrorist attack in Boston which no group has taken responsibility for.
Terrorists do their stuff to send a message. If no one understands what the message is, it's a failure from their perspective. The obvious way to make people get the message, is to say what your message is.
In some subcultures, certain dates and events have special significance. Neo-nazis, for instance, have a habit of doing stuff on Hitler's or Hess' birthday. Because these days are special to them, they may either
* Suffer from the misconception that the date is special to everyone else as well, and thus people will get the message without an explicit statement, or
* Accept that the date isn't special outside the milieu, but their friends and enemies will get it. They are content sending a message to just those groups, rather than the public at large.
The Boston Marathon terrorist(s) haven't published what message they wished to send. So, they think it will be obvious to everyone, or at least their friends and enemies. That means they are probably not foreign - foreign terrorists know that we don't share their ideas of significant days, and are comparatively more eager to accept responsibility (that they're harder for the USG to track down probably is also a factor).
Now, is there an US subculture where Patriot's day, Tax day, and the Waco siege anniversary are special days? You bet there is. Could this subculture breed terrorists? It can, and it has [wikipedia.org].
It's very legitimate to draw a connection here, this is not just any day on the calendar. Even if this plant's explosion was a complete accident, it will be filled with significance to the anti-government conspiracy theorists centered on Waco. If they don't believe one of their own did it, they're probably going to think God/Fate did it. If the Boston Marathon terrorists come from this subculture, they couldn't have asked for something better. (If they don't, though - if for instance, against the odds, they're islamists - they're probably frustrated as hell at this, and will publish a manifesto or similar in the upcoming days to correct impressions).
Re:20 years passed (Score:2, Interesting)
So, then like the Boston tea party, conducted by terrorists,
this has potential to be the Texas shit party?
Re:How Tragic (Score:2, Interesting)
The question is, what about the situation even had the potential for such an incredible explosion?
That'd be the fact that the massive fire was in a factory where they make explosive stuff.
The factory didn't make explosives, it only made fertilizers. It is stuff that like many chemicals can in some situations be explosive, no doubt.
If you think this was bad, you should see some grain silo explosions. That is just a bunch of dust in a tube where unfortunately a bad spark can cause the whole silo to explode in a fashion just like was seen on the video in the link in the original story post. That isn't even something remotely connected to explosives but just ordinary grain that otherwise you would make into your next peanut butter & jelly sandwich.
Under ordinary circumstances, even a fire wouldn't be a problem for a plant like this. In fact, the fire supposedly was put out by the local fire department only to flare up again and quickly get out of hand. There should have been some safety features in that plant to help suppress the fire and there definitely could have been some different procedures put into place to prevent this explosion, but this was a situation far from normal.
Phone Video Up on Youtube Already (Score:4, Interesting)
It was detected by seismic networks [usgs.gov]. Note that the most common reason for "earthquakes" at zero depth is a quarry explosion, so that's how they initially labeled it. They've since changed it to read simply "Explosion". Click the "did you feel it link" and you can see that some people felt it as if it were an earthquake. Strangely, they are north of the event. Either the waves propogated that way, or people south of the event saw the cloud and realized it was an explosion not a quake.
Here is how it looked dangerously close [youtube.com] (warning, the people taking this video were way too close so if you can't stomach listening to young girl in complete fear, don't watch that video all the way through) I'm guessing and hoping those people are okay being that the video is on YouTube.