Texas Plant Told State it Could Not Explode

Newser ^ | 04/18/2013 | By Kevin Spak

[Responsibility2nd]

(Newser) – News outlets are digging into the West Fertilizer plant's regulatory filings and finding that, in light of the explosion that may have killed as many as 15 people and injured about 160, the plant might have undersold the risks a tad. While the company did tell regulators it had up to 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia on hand, it said there was "no" fire or explosive risk, Fox News reports. It said the absolute worst-case scenario would be an essentially harmless 10-minute gas leak.

In other developments:

• Rick Perry is asking the federal government to declare an emergency for the area, the Dallas Morning News reports. "Last night was truly a nightmare scenario," he said. " This tragedy has most likely hit every family and touched practically everyone in that town."
• Three to four West City volunteer firefighters are among the missing, as is the city secretary. The blast destroyed as many as 75 buildings. The streets of the town are carpeted with the glass of storefront windows, and one 50-unit apartment complex stands with its brick facade blown completely away.
• Documents obtained by the Dallas Morning News indicate that regulators didn't issue a permit for the facility until after it was already in use, and that they were well aware of its proximity to homes and a school. Columnist Tod Robberson writes that the incident should be a wake-up call to cities to zone dangerous businesses more carefully. "Someone needs to be called to account," he writes.
• KUT notes that the explosion falls almost directly on the 66th anniversary of the Texas City Disaster, a devastating explosion caused by a ship containing ammonium nitrate.

 

[Navy Patriot]

What the heck was burning?

Ya see why there is so much ya need to know in detail before ya can speak with any certainty?

What type of container is type R?

Hoe the Aussies ship ammonium nitrate

[Pikachu_Dad]

Here is a 'blast map' from cbs news. They have the large round tank listed as the 'fertilizer plant' What do you think?

[Pikachu_Dad]

Well, when in doubt, lets go to the Daily Mail and see what they can add. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2310825/West-Texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-leaves-dead-100-injured.html Here's a picture of the owner: Owner: Donald Adair has owned the West Fertilizer Co. for around seven years So he could answer a lot of questions about how they were actually setup.

[Navy Patriot]

I think CBS just picked it for convenience to construct the map for air, as it approximates the center of the building area and it's nice and round.

I'm goin' to bed.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Daily Mail Fustration... - They have 'three' tanks listed as ammonia tanks - Site only had 2 ammonia tanks. - Each tank holds only 12,000 US Gallons. - The size of a tank truck. - Those are NOT pressure containing tanks. - Probably grain storage tanks. Now here is what a 12,000 Gallon Ammonia trailer looks like http://www.transcaer.com/docs/AATour/Transcaer_Ammonia_Training_2011Transports_IG_rev10.pdf - long - skinny - white (to reflect heat from the sun) - not those massive grey clunky things.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Hmmm.... A chemical trailer sits among the remains of a fertilizer plant burning after an explosion at the plant in the town of West, near Waco, Texas early April 18, 2013 (Reuters / Mike Stone)

[Pikachu_Dad]

Picture from: Blast plant fined for lack of risk management plan, claimed ‘no fire danger’

http://rt.com/usa/west-fertilizer-plant-safety-051/

[Pikachu_Dad]

Same site, picture before the explosion. We are on the West side, because the railroad tracks are between us and the plant. The road is to our left and curling away, which puts us on the South side. We can see the tree in the google picture on the mid-left. There appear to be NO railcars on the track. At all. It actually appears to be the FAR building on fire. Not the near building. The building I was speculating as the OFFICE building. The building TO THE WEST of the Office building is what we are speculating is the dry fertilizer storage building. Yes? Wind is to the North? Smoke is going to the North to the very large, round storage tanks. We do not know what is in them yet. Earlier reports said there was a grain company and a fertilizer company on the same site. We have suspects for the fertilizer building and the ammonia storage tanks. We have not identified the grain storage. Are these the grain storage tanks?

[Pikachu_Dad]

This site also posits that the center of the blast was from the big round (unidentified) storage tank.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Ah, three big round storage tanks you say? Hmmm.

“They claim largest storage 90 tons, so they must have had at least 3 of those units.

That would make ‘em under 20’ high, but it is still unwise to store it in bulk.”

[Pikachu_Dad]

From business insider. Not sure where they got these pics from. I don't see any bleeding relief piping on this setup ?!? Anhydrous ammonia tanks on a farm. The tanks are painted white so they don't get hot in the sun Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-fertilizer-explodes-2013-4#ixzz2R56Klww6

[Pikachu_Dad]

From business insider. Not sure where they got these pics from. Anhydrous ammonia tanks on a farm. The tanks are painted white so they don't get hot in the sun Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-fertilizer-explodes-2013-4#ixzz2R56Klww6

[Pikachu_Dad]

An after shot: Note the two, identical, long white horizontal tanks in the lower right. I think these would be the two ammonia storage tanks. The big 'blast area' was were the large grey building was. The big scorched area north of that would be where the office building was. The large, round concrete pad on the left was where the storage tank was. The railroad tracks are at the bottom of the pic.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Photos are from the stamfordadvocate.com Safety rules limited for small fertilizer plants RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press, By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI and JACK GILLUM, Associated Press Updated 6:13 pm, Saturday, April 20, 2013 Read more: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/texas/article/Safety-rules-limited-for-small-fertilizer-plants-4450107.php#ixzz2R59oc6jn Here is the first, pull back picture. Note the railroad tracks, the large concrete pad, and the white containers. Note above the concrete pad what looks to be the shell of the tank that had stood on the pad. This confirms we have the correct orientation. http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/21/13/14/4502323/3/628x471.jpg

[Pikachu_Dad]

Same source, pic 2. We are at the far left of the zoomed out pic. Where the rail spur comes off for the company. - Noticed the tipped over railcar in the lower left of the picture. - It is 'tipped over', not exploded. - It looks to be a solids carrying car, because of the three hoppers on the bottoms. - It is tipped over AWAY from the plant. - Large concrete pad is to our lower right. It does not appear to be the source of the blast. - Look at the debris fields. The blast center was TO THE LEFT of this picture.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Moving on to picture 6. Similar view as the previous picture, but moves East (down in previous) more. - We can still see the tipped over railcar. - We can see all of the large concrete pad where the tank used to stand. - We can see the debris to the right of the pad, what is that? o First big piece may be from the building that exploded. o The lighter pieces to the right look to be pieces of the tank. o Not sure what the big round thing under that is? o Blast clearly occurred to the left of us. (SOUTH)

[Pikachu_Dad]

North shot looking South. In the lower left, it appears to be the ROOF of the tank from the large concrete pad, laying on its top. The whitish, clean looking area, just above the concrete pad (just SOUTH of the pad) looks to be the initial spot of the explosion. That would have been inside the large storage building. We can see the charred remains of the office building to the left. That is what seemed to be on fire BEFORE the explosion.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Last one for the night. EAST side shot. Office building that was burning in the foreground. The Dry Fertilizer storage was above that. That is the center of the explosion. Above that, we can see the very damaged apartment complex. To the left we can see the chemical storage tanks and the ammonia storage tanks. To the right we can see what we think were the grain storage tanks that were blown off their pedestal. Looks like you were right Navy.

[Dust in the Wind]

You need to look on Google Earth at this site. The building that is burning is the one closest to the tracks as you can see its makeup better in GE. The office/scale house is to the far right out of this photo. There are platform scales on the street side of it. All the grain bins appear to have been empty as they are flattened like stepping on a tin can. The large round storage tank appears to me to have been used as a flat storage building as there is a forklift still sitting on the pad in one of your photos. That tank is an old oilfield storage tank. There many around the west that have been converted for other uses such as grain storage. They are made up of smaller bolt together panels. You can take out enough of the panels to make an egress point without losing too much structural integrity.

[Pikachu_Dad]

A bit more information here. The Ammonium nitrate started appearing on their reports in 2012. Apparently nobody at the one office notified the other regulators of the hazard.

NY Daily News: Saturday, April 20, 2013, 11:34 AM

Texas fertilizer plant had 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally raise red flags

The factory in West, Texas, did not report its massive amount of the potentially explosive fertilizer to the Department of Homeland Security, a source familiar with DHS operations said. At least 14 people died and more than 200 were injured following the blast on Wednesday.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-fertilizer-plant-massive-amounts-unreported-ammonium-nitrate-article-1.1322766#ixzz2R71QxwBA

Quote: “Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren’t shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.”

““It seems this manufacturer was willfully off the grid,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, (D-MS), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement. “This facility was known to have chemicals well above the threshold amount to be regulated under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Act (CFATS), yet we understand that DHS did not even know the plant existed until it blew up.””

“In its RMP filings, West Fertilizer reported on its storage of anhydrous ammonia and said that it did not expect a fire or explosion to affect the facility, even in a worst-case scenario. And it had not installed safeguards such as blast walls around the plant.”

“In response to a request from Reuters, Haywood, who has been a safety engineer for 17 years, reviewed West Fertilizer’s Tier II sheets from the last six years. He said he found several items that should have triggered the attention of local emergency planning authorities - most notably the sudden appearance of a large amount of ammonium nitrate in 2012.”