April 16, 1947 :
Texas City, Texas
Texas City, Texas
April 17, 2013:
West, Texas
Twice in 66 years, the fertilizer that helps put more and cheaper food on your table also has blown up much of a Texas town.
Ammonium nitrate and fire don't mix. Large quantities of flaming ammonium nitrate and commercial or residential areas mix catastrophically.
When I was a kid, DuPont's ad slogan was "Better Things for Better Living . . . Through Chemistry." That may well be true, but that "better living" comes at a cost that well-off advertising executives are at little risk of having to pay.
THAT deadly check, when it comes, usually gets picked up by working-class folks in places like Texas City. Or West. Or my hometown, Baton Rouge.
You don't want to know what would happen if the entire Exxon-Mobil refinery there blew. We just found out what happens when a fertilizer plant blows in a town like West.
Not that we'll stop to count the costs of progress, however. That's just not the American Way.
