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Battered Town Seeks Missing After Blast Kills at Least 5 Battered Town Seeks Missing After Blast Kills at Least 5
(about 3 hours later)
WEST, Tex. — Rescue workers picked through the rubble of a fertilizer company and the devastated town around it on Thursday, looking for missing firefighters and survivors of a huge explosion that tore through this small Central Texas town on Wednesday night, killing as many as 15 people and injuring more than 180 others. WEST, Tex. — The blast was so powerful that the United States Geological Survey registered it as a 2.1-magnitude earthquake. It reduced an apartment complex to a charred skeleton, leveled homes in a five-block radius and burned with such intensity that railroad tracks were fused together. It killed up to 15 people and injured up to 180. Volunteer firefighters were missing. Residents of a nursing home were pulled from debris and rushed to hospitals.
At an afternoon news conference, officials did not update earlier estimates that from 5 to 15 people had been killed in the blast, and would confirm only that fatalities had occurred. Scores of people have been treated at area hospitals. By Thursday evening, one day after a fertilizer plant here caught fire and then exploded, no one among the hundreds of local, state and federal officials and first-responders who converged on this town north of Waco was certain about the cause. They only knew its effect.
Homes and businesses were leveled in the normally quiet town of West, just north of Waco, and there was widespread destruction in the downtown area, Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police Department said earlier Thursday. “There are homes that are no longer homes,” said Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton, a spokesman for the Waco Police Department, who toured the streets near the plant at 10 p.m. Wednesday, about two hours after the blast. “The apartment complex was roughly a 50-unit apartment complex. As you look at the front of that complex, you can see inside the apartments. Walls were ripped off, the roof was peeled back.”
“At some point this will turn into a recovery operation, but at this point, we are still in search and rescue,” he said. In a second morning news conference, Sergeant Swanton said that the fires were still smoldering, but “there is nothing out of control over there at this point. A day later, it took the descriptive skills of survivors and emergency workers to get a sense of the true scope of the devastation — the authorities prohibited anyone not involved in the search-and-rescue effort from entering the area around the plant and even put a no-fly zone restriction on the airspace overhead.
Three to five firefighters were missing, he said earlier in the day, mostly first responders from a volunteer fire department who rushed to the scene before the blast. “They were actively fighting the fire at the time the explosion occurred,” he said. But what became clear was that the explosion had destroyed a significant piece of a small town in the center of Texas, damaging up to 75 homes and setting off an extensive, meticulous search for survivors in the rubble of the plant and the surrounding buildings. The smoke that wafted over them seemed out of place in this green, cattle-rich area locally known as the boyhood backyard of the country singer Willie Nelson.
As many as 75 homes have been damaged, along with several businesses and a 50-unit apartment complex, and storefronts were boarded up nearly a mile away from the blast site. A spokesman for the F.B.I. in San Antonio said Thursday there had been no indication of criminal activity in the West plant explosion.
“I saw a red flash behind me and the whole ground shook,” said Mark Kostecka, 46, a building maintenance worker who was arriving home for dinner at the time of the blast. “It was like an atom bomb going off.” The authorities said they believed that at least 5 people and perhaps as many as 15 had died, though they said that number could rise. Three to five members of the West Volunteer Fire Department and those of other towns remained missing. They had responded to a fire that broke out at the plant about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, and were fighting the blaze when the blast occurred about 7:50 p.m.
Jack Stone, a member of a roofing company crew that had driven in from Waco to repair damaged homes, said, “It looked like a hurricane came through.” “The explosion came very quickly,” Sergeant Swanton said. “They knew the threat. They knew the seriousness of the situation they were in. They immediately started moving to an evacuation process, absolutely doing the right thing to try and get people out of harm’s way.”
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas called the explosion “a truly nightmare scenario,” and said that information about death and injury was “very preliminary.” But he said that because West is so small, “this tragedy has most likely hit every family.” Perry Calvin, 37, a married father of two with a third on the way, was one of the missing volunteer firefighters. He had been attending an emergency medical technician class in West on Wednesday evening when a firefighter in the class got a page about the fire at the fertilizer company, said his father, Phil Calvin.
“ It has touched practically everybody in that town,” he added. He said President Obama had phoned him from Air Force One, on his way to Boston, to offer his support. Perry Calvin and another man drove to the scene together and got there before the explosion. The other man was found dead Wednesday night.
The White House issued a statement from Mr. Obama saying, “Today our prayers go out to the people of West, Tex.” He pledged that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal agencies would join state and local efforts “to make sure there are no unmet needs as search and rescue and response operations continue.” “It doesn’t look good, but we don’t have anything confirmed yet,” Phil Calvin, the fire chief in the town of Navarro Mills, said Thursday afternoon. About an hour after he spoke those words, he got the news, sitting by the phone at his home in nearby Frost: his son was indeed among the dead.
The disaster began with a smaller fire at the plant, West Fertilizer, just off Interstate 35, about 20 miles north of Waco. Local volunteer firefighters responded, said Representative Bill Flores. “The fire spread and hit some of these tanks that contain chemicals to treat the fertilizer,” Mr. Flores said. Perry Calvin was not even a firefighter with the West department. He volunteered with another department in a nearby town, but had rushed to the scene to help, because he happened to be close. He is the kind of guy who would be right at the head of the line, his father said. “He would do what he could to put the fire out or help find people.”
The fireball blasted high into the sky and set fires burning into the night. Law enforcement officials said they had not determined the cause of either the fire or the explosion, and were focusing on the search for survivors. The blast occurred two days before the anniversary of the bombing of Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, an attack set off by explosives made from fertilizer that killed 168 people on April 19, 1995. And it happened two days after bombs exploded at the finish line at the Boston Marathon.
D. L. Wilson, a state trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety, compared the destruction to Iraq war scenes and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an act of terrorism using explosives made from fertilizer. The White House issued a statement from President Obama, in which he pledged that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal agencies would join state and local efforts “to make sure there are no unmet needs as search and rescue and response operations continue.”
“I can tell you, I was there, I walked through the blast area, I searched some houses earlier tonight,” he said. “It was massive, just like Iraq, just like the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.” Gov. Rick Perry called the explosion “a truly nightmare scenario” and said that information about death and injury is “very preliminary.” But he said that because of the size of West — the population is 2,700 — “this tragedy has most likely hit every family.”
The mayor of West, Tommy Muska, said in brief televised remarks that 50 to 60 houses in a five-block area were heavily damaged, and that search-and-rescue teams worked through the night. A nursing home, with 133 residents, was among those hit. The fate of those within it was, like so much on the scene, not immediately clear. “It has touched practically everybody in that town,” he added. Mr. Obama, the governor said, had phoned him from Air Force One, while on his way to Boston, to offer his support.
Mr. Wilson and other local officials told reporters that half the town had been evacuated because of fears of toxic fumes being spread by heavy winds. First responders continued to search “house by house,” he said. The response by federal officials echoed that of some of the country’s deadliest bombings, fires and acts of terrorism. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent a 20-member national response team of explosives specialists, chemists and other experts, as had been done after the Oklahoma City bombing and the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The Chemical Safety Board, the federal entity that investigates chemical disasters, said that it had sent an investigative team to the site.
Many of the wounded were taken to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, where more than 250 physicans and staff members responded to provide medical care. Twenty-eight people were admitted and remained at the hospital Thursday, including five who were being treated in the intensive care unit, according to hospital officials. In addition, 2 pediatric trauma patients were transferred to a children’s hospital in Temple, 12 elderly nursing home residents were treated and discharged to other nursing homes, and more than 50 other people were treated and released. The plant, the West Chemical and Fertilizer Company, which is owned by Adair Grain Inc., had only nine employees. It did not manufacture any products, but instead stored and sold agricultural chemicals and fertilizer to farmers. The company stored substantial amounts of chemicals used as commercial fertilizers that can become explosive under proper conditions: anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate.
A triage area was set up next to a baseball field, and a few miles north of West, the school gymnasium in the town of Abbott was converted into an emergency shelter for evacuees who lived near the plant. But overnight Thursday, the nearly 100 cots were empty, and dozens of volunteers, including faculty members and teenage students, waited for a rush of people that never came. Bottles of water sat in bundled packages outside the school, untouched. Anhydrous ammonia is stored as a liquid in pressurized tanks and farmers inject it into the soil, where it vaporizes into a colorless, corrosive gas. Ammonium nitrate is usually sold in granular form, and was used in the Oklahoma City bombing. A filing late last year with the Environmental Protection Agency stated that the company stored 540,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate on the site and 110,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia.
The Red Cross in the Dallas and Fort Worth region said in a statement posted online that it had crews on the way to help, and Red Cross workers were looking for a safe place to house residents who had been displaced. Sergeant Swanton said that the town would help its own. “I can promise you that the city of West will not let a person stand out in the rain,” he said. “They will bring you into their home, and you will be comfortable.” Records kept by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration show that the last time the agency inspected the plant was 28 years ago. In that inspection, dated Feb. 13, 1985, the agency found five “serious” violations, including ones involving improper storage and handling of anhydrous ammonia and improper respiratory protection for workers. The agency imposed a $30 penalty on the company.
A spokesman for the F.B.I. in San Antonio said Thursday morning that there had been no indication of criminal activity in the plant explosion. The spokesman, Special Agent Erik Vasys, said the agency had personnel on the scene to assist local officials if needed. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also on the scene, and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, the federal entity that investigates chemical disasters, said that it had sent its own investigative team to the site. An agency spokesman said the plant was not included in its so-called National Emphasis Plan for inspections because the facility did not produce explosives, had no major prior accidents and the E.P.A. did not rate it as a major risk.
Zak Covar, the executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said during the governor’s news conference that the company has been in business since 1962 and is one of a number of small fertilizer companies across rural Texas that distributes supplies to local farmers. The company has “an average compliance history,” with one air quality complaint registered in 2006. In that episode, on June 9, 2006, according to state records, residents complained to the commission about the “ammonia smell” that was “very bad last night.” Zak Covar, the executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the company had been in business since 1962 and was one of a number of small fertilizer companies across rural Texas. The company has “an average compliance history,” with one air-quality complaint registered. In that episode, on June 9, 2006, according to state records, residents complained to the commission about the “ammonia smell” that was “very bad last night.”
That occurrence was investigated by the agency and resolved with the granting of two air permits to the company by the end of that year, Mr. Covar said.That occurrence was investigated by the agency and resolved with the granting of two air permits to the company by the end of that year, Mr. Covar said.
The company filed its most recent risk management plans with the federal Environmental Protection Agency in June 2011, and stated that the company had just seven full-time employees and had not accidentally released any ammonia in the previous five years. Because it was built in 1962, the facility was grandfathered in to state regulations, Mr. Covar said. The company was supposed to get reauthorized in 2004, but failed to do so. Mr. Covar would not speculate on the reason.
The company laid out its “worst-case scenario” in the filing, which it stated would be “the release of the total contents of a storage tank released as a gas over 10 minutes,” or “a release from a break in a transfer hose.” The company stated in the form that it did not consider fire or explosion as significant hazards. The disaster began with a smaller fire at the plant, which sits off Interstate 35. Videos posted online showed a large fire, visible from hundreds of yards away, followed by a fireball that blasted high into the sky and set fires burning into the night and smoldering until late morning.
Because it was built in 1962, the facility was grandfathered into state regulations, Mr. Covar said. The company was supposed to get reauthorized in 2004, but failed to do so. Mr. Covar would not speculate on the reason. At one Waco hospital, Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, 28 people were admitted, including 5 who were in intensive care.
He also said that currently the agency did not detect health concerns in the air near the facility. “I saw a red flash behind me, and the whole ground shook,” said Mark Kostecka, 46, a building maintenance worker who lives about a mile from the plant and was arriving home for dinner at the time of the blast. “It was like an atom bomb going off.”
Governor Perry, in response to questions, declined to speculate about whether the regulatory financing and oversight was adequate. Danny Kaluza, 53, a wheat and corn farmer, was talking to some friends in a gasoline station on Main Street at the moment of the explosion. The blast blew the door of the station open. Mr. Kaluza described, as other local witnesses did, the mushroom-shaped cloud that rose in the sky.
Records from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration indicate that the agency’s last inspection of the facility occurred 28 years ago, in 1985. The agency found five violations that were considered “serious,” including some improper handling of anhydrous ammonia. The company was fined $30. “It was a loud noise, and after the noise there was a concussion-like wave of pressure that blew through the town,” he said.
The company stores substantial amounts of chemicals used in commercial fertilizers that can become explosive under proper conditions: anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate. Anhydrous ammonia is a relatively inexpensive source of nitrogen for crops that is usually made from natural gas and atmospheric nitrogen. It is stored as a liquid in pressurized tanks and farmers inject it into the soil, where it vaporizes into a colorless, corrosive gas. Ammonium nitrate was a chemical used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. A filing late last year with the Environmental Protection Agency stated that the company stored 540,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate on the site and 110,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia.

Manny Fernandez reported from West, and John Schwartz from New York. Reporting was contributed by Clifford Krauss in West; Emma G. Fitzsimmons, Christine Hauser, Henry Fountain and Ravi Somaiya in New York; Steven Greenhouse in Austin, Tex.; and Ian Urbina in Washington.

West is a small country town of just 2,700 people. Its name refers not to its location on the state map, but to its first postmaster, T. M. West.
An estimated 300 to 400 first responders and officials from numerous local, state and federal agencies — sheriff’s deputies, volunteer firefighters, A.T.F. agents, police officers, medics, constables — have converged on the town, as have dozens of reporters from news media outlets around the world.
The skies over West were a dark gray, and a steady and at times severe rain fell on the region. In the hours before dawn, the air was choked with smoke, and it had a bitter, gunpowder-like scent and aftertaste, the way the air gets in the moments after a Fourth of July fireworks show has ended. The morning rains seemed to wash away much of the smell by midmorning, and the search efforts continued.

Manny Fernandez reported from West, Tex., and John Schwartz from New York. Emma G. Fitzsimmons, Christine Hauser, Henry Fountain and Ravi Somaiya contributed reporting from New York; Steven Greenhouse from Austin; and Ian Urbina from Washington.