I understand communities grow up around existing businesses, but scenes like this illustrate the stupidity of allowing a nursing home, school, residential area, or any other heavily populated buildings to be built near a fertilizer or chemical plant. City council - we need jobs and we need a tax base so let’s approve the placement of a nursing home next to a fertilizer plant. Solid zoning and urban planning on display here.
How in the world could such a business even get insurance? I am watching this in absolute amazement.... there was a fire at a fertilizer plant and the firemen rushed to the plant? Do they know anything about fertilizer?
Wow. Just wow. I am a Capitalist with a big “C” and I want every community to have jobs, nursing homes, schools, housing, and fertilizer plants. However, one of those things should not be in close proximity to the rest of that list.
I hate myself for Monday morning quarterbacking here and prayers up for those affected. I am just stunned that they would allow a nursing home, school, and residences to be built close to such a plant.
The good news is that they knew what they were going in to and -hopefully- had a good pre-fire plan.
Some years ago there were several guys who were killed fighting a fire in a parked trailer of ammonium nitrate late at night and had no clue what they were dealing with.
It sounds like the incident commander has a good staff and they are in front of the problem and not playing catch up.
Back to what you said, one only has to look at Texas City 1947 and the Morton Thiakol blast in NV to see potential.
The Apache Powder plant in Arizona was pretty much all by itself south of Wilcox, AZ, for just the reasons you list. It is expensive to get services and utilities if you are isolated however.
This is sounding worse as time goes by. Twitter has estimates of 60-70 dead including six firemen and one policeman. Horrible tragedy.
It’a quite possible the plant was there first and the town grew up around it, so to speak. Happens often with little airports. They start way out in a field, then subdivisions spring up around them and the residents complain about the noise from the air traffic.