Blooiey

[celticdragonfly]

Wow, got a call from the_blue_fenix to check with me. A solvent factory near me blew up. Yep, big black plume of smoke outside.
Here's the story - http://tinyurl.com/9x4sp
user name - saginaw@kelthaven.org password fornews
Whee. They've evacuated 7 schools ("Classes have not yet started in Fort Worth, but staff and teachers were already on the campuses preparing to begin the school year."), highway 35W is at a standstill, and the Star-Telegram sez "Fort Worth fire department officials said they were operating under condition red."

What a good day not to go near there. Fortunately selenite didn't come by there on the way home, and doesn't have to go by there to get Maggiekins to the doctor.

NB: Picture is from news site, I am NOT close enough to get a pic like that, or I would be much more worried.

Comments

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you are ok!

I'll have to send a donation in your name to one of the groups that lobbies for stricter safety regulations at such plants.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

No please. Don't like lobbiers, and have NO idea what the cause was. Way to early to know that. I don't know if it was caused by lack of safety regulations, negligence, criminal intent, terrorist attack, lightning strike, or other. NO idea. The fire departments who put themselves in harm's way to put this sort of thing out, those I can get behind for sure.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

The Death of Common Sense lists a whole bunch of examples where safety regulations just make things worse. I can list a bunch of engineering failures where the system came down because of a "safety feature" tacked on at the end of the process. The DCX explosion is my favorite example.

Clearly something went wrong but there's no way to tell what the proper fix is until the investigators dig down to the root cause.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

There are just as many books that show the other side. When industries claim "self-regulation" it becomes a disaster. Enron, for example, claimed it didn't need to be regulated because it was such a new industry it was unlike anything else. The reality is that you can't have a fair market without regulations just like you can't have a baseball game without referees.

When companies say they need less regulation, what they are actually asking for is "lawlessness". That doesn't help anyone.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Hey, this is Laura's journal. You know, Laura "Hates politics and political arguments" Gallagher?

Feel free to go do a post on the explosion and fire and rant on about regulations on your journal all you like.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Sorry!

Political addict,
Tom

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

I just saw this and was logging on to ping you... Hope everything remains all right...

boomity

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

I am unable to resist saying that this is an example of why having local tv channels enabled can come in handy. Another one being weather watches and warnings. Although it was not local tv but local radio, in my car, that notified me.

(Insert free plug for the "Weather Wardens" series of books, starting with "Ill Wind, by the fabulous Rachel Caine.)

It's true that it's too early to say anything about causes. The fact that there were few injuries and no deaths from a fire of this magnitude suggests that the company was doing something right at the "run for your life!!!!!" end of the safety procedures. The size of the fire does suggest that their overall procedures could be better, I admit.

What are the chances of the company that had this boom surviving as an entity, d'ya'suppose? I guess they have insurance.

Re: boomity

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right. For most news stories, though, looking it up online works fine, I have a local news station bookmarked.

Weather watches and warnings is another thing, something I take more seriously, and want available even when the TV is off. I used to have weatherbug on the computer, but they kept adding traffic stuff and other junk and wanting me to upgrade, so I got rid of that. If weather looks bad, we put on the radio. We bought various bad weather supplies, including an emergency NOAA radio. You can set it so it's off most of the time, but comes on and wails at you for severe weather issues.

Unfortunately, I got confused on where the plugin went, and the backup batteries died. I replaced the batteries, but can't find the manual that told me how to reprogram the damned thing. GRRRRR, bad design. We have requested another manual - there is NOT one online - and are awaiting it in the mail.

Re: boomity

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

You can get a dedicated weather station radio for not much at Radio Shack. Or a simple AM/FM with battery backup, which is what we've got. 1080AM usually has the highest news/jabber ratio around here, especially during rough weather. Warning, there is baseball.