Yeah, it is. My son was watching the news with us and said "April is not a good month to be in the US - seems like so much really crappy stuff happens in April there."
Your son is right, and it's not a coincidence.
The Waco siege just happened to be in April. The Oklahoma City bombing was carried out on the anniversary of the Waco event as revenge against the US government. The Columbine shooters were inspired by the Oklahoma City bombing and intended to take over the school on the anniversary, but got delayed by a day. The Virginia Tech shooter was inspired by the Columbine shooters and carried out his attack within a few days of that anniversary.
I'm not going to jump to conclusions about the Boston Marathon or this fertilizer plant explosion, but the rest of it is just a downward spiral of hate and destruction.
All it takes is a tanker full of gasoline and a psychopath driving the rig to blow up a fertilizer factory.
This was anhydrous ammonia, not ammonium nitrate, so a tanker full of gas isn't going to cause it to explode easily. I'm not an expert, although I used to work at a fertilizer plant, but I believe what happened here is a fire caused the compressed ammonia to boil, creating a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion, or BLEVE.
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Just heard the 4 am news on the radio. Unfortunately there are 15 confirmed fatalities.
It's going to end up way above that, I think.
How the hell do you allow a residential area of that size to spring up around a fertilizer plant? And I would definitely be interested in hearing of what the initial emergency response to the fire was, because the second they saw flames, there should have been some kind of evacuation procedure enacted.
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How the hell do you allow a residential area of that size to spring up around a fertilizer plant? And I would definitely be interested in hearing of what the initial emergency response to the fire was, because the second they saw flames, there should have been some kind of evacuation procedure enacted.
I think you're not understanding how small towns exist in the States. Any time a factory, mine, port, whatever, is created, the town springs up right beside it. Thing of all the mining towns built right beside the mines, or thousands of cities directly beside the ports; all have the possibility to be totally destroyed, but that the way we've designed them. Think Halifax, Frank, etc.
And on your second point, Id say this is pretty similar to the local Hub oil fire. People directly in the danger zone were evacuated, but in the Tx case, it somehow detonated, something I don't think anyone was expecting given the type of product produced at this plant.
I think you're not understanding how small towns exist in the States. Any time a factory, mine, port, whatever, is created, the town springs up right beside it. Thing of all the mining towns built right beside the mines, or thousands of cities directly beside the ports; all have the possibility to be totally destroyed, but that the way we've designed them. Think Halifax, Frank, etc.
And on your second point, Id say this is pretty similar to the local Hub oil fire. People directly in the danger zone were evacuated, but in the Tx case, it somehow detonated, something I don't think anyone was expecting given the type of product produced at this plant.
I've seen some massive fires - Hub Oil, Erlton condo, a furniture plant and a roof truss plant - and one thing is usually true: compressed gas cylinders tend to blow when they get wrapped in fire.
Anyway, the plant apparently convinced the EPA that there was "no risk of fire or explosion" in a report. Oops.
To be honest you'd have to put me in the stupid column. Chances are if I saw a fire like that I'd want to check it out even if I knew it was a fertilizer plant.
First of all, because fire.
Second of all, I wouldn't have even thought about how big of an explosion there could be.
Just like the people in Halifax that walked to the shore to watch the ammo ship burn.
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Advisories on safe handling of anhydrous ammonia generally state that the chemical is not considered an explosion risk when in the air as a gas. They add, however, that it can explode in certain concentrations inside a container. “Emergency responders should not mix water used for firefighting directly with anhydrous ammonia as this will result in warming of the product, causing the liquid to turn into a vapor cloud,” says the website of Calamco, a growers’ cooperative in California.
The firefighting procedure for these types of fires should be:
1. Evacuate everyone within 1 mile.
2. Stand back and let the fire burn itself out.
For the Hub Oil fire in Calgary, that what the CFD figured out was the best plan after losing a half million dolar truck to the fire (thankfully no firefighter deaths)
The firefighting procedure for these types of fires should be:
1. Evacuate everyone within 1 mile.
2. Stand back and let the fire burn itself out.
For the Hub Oil fire in Calgary, that what the CFD figured out was the best plan after losing a half million dolar truck to the fire (thankfully no firefighter deaths)
I don't know if that's prudent though, we don't know what else in there can go kaboom.
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Any industrial compressed gas/liquid is a tricky thing and there are usually somewhat different equipment in place depending on what the chemical is. Anhydrous ammonia is quite volatile, but is easily stored/handled/transported etc. under pressure. DowninFlames is very likely correct at what caused the explosion, but the question remains how did that fire start?
The previous documentation they've released implies that they never anticipated any sort of fire event like this. There were obviously various pressure safety checks in the facility (explaining why they figured the worst thing that would happen would be a release of ammonia), but I wonder what external safety protocols were in place?
Anyway, horrible tragedy. Goes to show that chemical plants are no laughing matter. This always became a joke but it's very true - Safety: First, last and always.
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Watching some news reports saying the fire department was at the facility previously in the day then had to respond back later for a rekindle which resulted in this explosion. While they are a volunteer fire department I would expect they knew the dangers of potential fires at this facility. A plant as volatile as that would require pre planning just in case of emergency.
The mayor in the town is also a volunteer firefighter and was saying he was evacuating nearby residents so they must have had some sort of fear of something bad happening.
Still way to early to fully know what happened but this should serve warning to any place that has dangerous facilities so close to town and prepare for emergencies that could happen should there be an incident
Not by itself usually. If mixed with something or initiated by another explosive, then yes. It's fairly stable, otherwise you wouldn't see it being transported in large quantities.
The larger blast may have been a result of a large stockpile of AN initiated by a smaller blast perhaps by an ammonia tank. Or perhaps it mixed somehow with something else and ignited.
I wish they would stop referring to it as a plant, as I'm sure this is just a distributor/sales location which stockpiled for local ag use. If anything, they may have done custom mixes/compositions, but as far as I know, they actually didn't produce the materials they stored.
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I am not an explosives expert, and I'm willing to bet that he isn't either. Based on the video, I would have assumed that he was far enough away should there be an explosion.... The size of that explosion took me by surprise. I expected to see a nice video of an explosion from a distance, and then BOOOM!
Agreed. Up until the explosion, I wasn't sitting there thinking "You idiot, get out of there" I was thinking "I hate people who take cell phone videos and pics in that orientation".
I'm not going to judge this guy for making the same assumption that I did.
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