WEST, Texas: Officials in West, Texas, made plans yesterday to allow residents to return to their homes in parts of town blocked off since Wednesday night’s deadly blast at a local fertilizer plant.
Since the explosion that flattened sections of this town of some 2,700 people, disaster teams have been working to ensure the homes are safe to enter, according to Sergeant Jason Reyes of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Authorities on Friday put the death toll at 14 and said 200 people were injured, and Reyes said Saturday morning that those numbers had not changed.
Steve Vanek, a volunteer firefighter and the mayor protem, said the town planned to set up a hotline to let residents know when they might be able to return to their homes.
“We are really working very hard to get it safe and get y’all back to your homes,” Vanek told mourners on Friday evening at a remembrance service at a Catholic church. “When it is safe, we will contact you to let you know what our plan of attack is.”
The fire and ensuing blast at West Fertilizer Co, a privately owned retail facility, left a devastated landscape, gutting a 50-unit apartment complex, demolishing about 50 houses and battering a nursing home and schools. Dozens more homes were reported to have been damaged.
There was no indication of foul play, authorities said on Friday.
Carl and Ophelia Downing and their two sons, Colby, 11, and Caden, 9, are among those waiting to return. Their home is inside the evacuated area and the explosion blew some of their windows out and pulled doors off their frames. They are staying at a hotel in Waco. “We’re just waiting and doing what we can to help,” said Ophelia Downing, 35. “Taking it day by day.”
The majority of the confirmed dead were emergency personnel who responded to the fire and likely were killed by the blast, which was so powerful it registered as a magnitude 2.1 earthquake.
Donald Adair, a lifelong resident of West and owner of the plant’s parent company, Adair Grain Inc, issued a statement on Friday saying: “My heart is broken with grief for the tragic losses to so many families in our community.”
He added that his company was “working closely with investigative agencies” and pledged “to do everything we can to understand what happened to ensure nothing like this ever happens again in any community.”
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 plant stored 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the US Department of Homeland Security.
Reuters
