HazMat Safety and Security

There are the psychopaths in society, those whose hatred for institutions, for the social compact, for the people around them motivate them to become predators and killing machines. And then there are those who swoop in selflessly without a moment's thought that they are placing themselves in danger, desperate to aid those who have been caught up in a scene of disaster, and suffering.

They are the first-responders, passersby sometimes, but for the most part the professionals; police, firefighters, paramedics.

Without their humane, compassionate and security oriented response, scenes of mayhem and chaos would take far longer to take on order. They rush in where all others dare not tread, where the dangers are alternately obvious and not-so-obvious. Where others flee the scene of carnage and wreckage, they see it as their duty to be there, to scrutinize and evaluate, to safeguard and to humanize the intolerably inhumane scene of death and destruction.

Firefighter conduct a search and rescue operation at an apartment destroyed by an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, Thursday, April 18, 2013. A massive explosion at the plant killed as many as 15 people and injured more than 160, officials said overnight. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

And so it was in a small town in Texas, which had in its midst a fertilizer plant. Which had presented with safety and security problems in the past when its operations had been been checked by the Environmental Protection Agency. The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration had fined West Fertilizer last summer for safety violations. The company was found in default of required safety procedures.

But West Fertilizer, in a risk-management plan that was filed with the Environmental Protection Agency, denied it was handling flammable materials. It had no sprinklers, water-deluge systems, blast walls, firewalls or safety mechanisms in place in the plant. And it assured the EPA and local authorities that the factory was never at any risk of explosion. This despite that it held 54,000 pounds of a gas that could explode at very high temperatures, if sparked.

A worst-case scenario, according to the officials operating the West Fertilizer Co. plant was that a short-lived gas release could occur that would never result in injuries to anyone. Presumably, those very same officials will now be offered the opportunity to explain just how they reached those conclusions, at subsequent enquiries, and in all probably in a court of law.

A explanation will be expected to make sense of the catastrophic explosion that took place at the plant on Wednesday night. Good thing it happened at night, when it might have been expected that no workers would be present. Dreadful thing that it happened at all, drawing people in the neighbourhood to observe at close range a fire out of control, before the explosion occurred. Before the explosion occurred, firefighters were on the scene.

The resulting concussion from the explosive might of the ignited fertilizer was enough to register on sensitive seismographic machinery as a small earthquake. The sound was heard for miles across the Texas prairie, demolishing almost everything for blocks around the plant, destroying the comfort and security of the town, while injuring over 200 people.

And fourteen people died. Most of them first-responders rushing to the scene to put out the initial fire. "Everyone knows the first-responders, because anytime there's anything going on, the fire department is right there, all volunteer", mourned one long-time resident of West. These first-responders were town residents, known personally to everyone.

"People's lives are devastated here. It's hard to imagine", said firefighter Darryl Hall, from a town about 80 kilometres away from West, who was one of the rescuers aiding with the house-to-house search looking for other possible victims. In the town of 2,700 people, 50 homes were destroyed. Three fire trucks and an ambulance were destroyed in the blast, along with a 50-unit apartment building, and damage done to the town's intermediate school.


The state, through its Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requires all facilities handling anhydrous ammonia, as West Fertilizer Co. did, to have sprinklers installed, along with other safety measures in recognition that the chemical is flammable. Inspectors failed to check whether the law was being respected in the plant, and the plant's officers felt no compulsion to obey laws that no one seemed anxious to enforce.

The town is picking up its pieces, and it is mourning its dead, those who felt compelled to respond when disaster struck their community, only to be struck down in the process.