What a gawdawful mess.
What a gawdawful time for Don the Con to be talking about knocking $1Bn or so off of disaster relief.
I feel so for all those folks who are stuck with no flood insurance and nothing else to fall back on. Canât imagine being in that situation (and hope I never have to find out). The millionaires always come out okay, itâs the little people who are barely scraping by who may never recover, financially or healthwise, from this mess.
So unfair.
Yes.
And whatâs really awful to contemplate over the long term is that the people who live from Houston eastward to Lake Charles are pretty much working-class at most who have little political power on their own and whose areaâs economy are heavily dependent on the petrochemical industryâwhich historically has done only the bare minimum to comply with regulations.
FEMA will be in that area for years, yes. But the effects on infrastructure, the economy, just may last for more than a generation, and (given prior history) probably not in good waysâunless government âencouragesâ these plants to build better.
From the Houston Chronicle:
âIt would be surprising if Arkema had not considered a scenario like this, said Sam Mannan of Texas A&M Universityâs Mary Kay OâConnor Process Safety Center. Typically, companies can quench organic peroxides in situations like this by combining them with another chemical, eliminating the danger.
âYouâll lose the feedstock, but itâs safer than letting it go into runaway mode,â Mannan said.
The plant has been shut down since Friday in anticipation of the storm.
The Arkema facility was among the Houston-area sites with the highest potential for harm in an incident, according to a 2016 analysis by the OâConnor Process Safety Center and the Houston Chronicle. That analysis factored risks based on the amount and type of dangerous chemicals on site and their proximity to the public.â
Arkema is saying the explosions were inevitable - nothing could be done to stop them since the cooling system was knocked out. However, there are compounds that can be put on these peroxides to keep them from becoming volatile and exploding if they become too warm, thus eliminating the explosion hazard to life and property in the surrounding area, as well as danger from fumes. The thing is, if you use the compound, it makes the peroxides unusable for product and not sell-able.
Profits over safety. And howâs that working out for ya now, Arkema. Your product is blown up, your factory and equipment all damaged by the explosions, life and property were in danger, people had to be evacuated from an already unbelievable flooding situation to escape the explosion hazard, and you still look like an uncaring, unsafe, profit-over-life, lying corporation. I think so-called president Trump has some big tax cuts for you.
This was covered on the Maddow Show last night, they basically said it was a matter of when, not if this plant would explode. The biggest debate was over the size and type of explosion.
Iâm guessing that they company didnât want to use the safest counter measures because it destroyed their stock/supplies, instead they relied on refrigeration units which failed. Damn shame but, not surprising if thereâs no Government regulations to make sure businesses act in the best interest of society, businesses will always default to the most profitable option.
A fresh round of Tax cuts will straighten this all out.
And cutting taxes to boot! Hey but then heâs going to build infrastructure with no money and no regulationâŚsupposedly a lot more in worse shape and or worse stuff to spewâŚwoo hoo hold itâs a wild ride that will probably get worse before Ds get elected to make it better.
And a big boost in military spending even if itâs not needed.
Theyâre not explosions per se, but chemical fires.
But what a mess. The stuff is being kept, apparently in the semi-trailers on the right side of the image. One trailer/container has already broken open.
A spokeswoman for the plant in Crosby, Texas, said late Wednesday that the flooded facility had lost power and backup generators amid Harvey flooding, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises.
Do we not put the backup generators on top of buildings? Is that not a thing?
And deportations. If there were more deportations, this wouldnât have happened.
Why, that place will be blown up bigger than those âSouvenir photosâ Pootie sends Donald from time to time as a âreminderâ.
Ah yes, Industry Self-Regulation at its finest.
Bhopal comes to your house.
Signed
An ex regulatory official.
If the explosions were inevitable, it would have been nice to give a heads up to media and law enforcement so emergency responders could avoid exposure.
We donât even have to go as far back as Bhopal in the 1980s.
Remember the fertilizer plant explosion of a few years back in West, Texas? In the heart of former Rep. Ron Paulâs district?
You would think so, in an area prone to flooding. However, Gooper-land, home of âregulations be damned.â
(I live in the flood plain of the Rhine here in Germany. We have natural gas on-demand heating for the house, which is located in the attic because they do not want furnaces and oil tanks in basements or lower levels because of the environmental impact in case of flooding. Also, fusebox is one story up, not in the (above ground) basement/lower level.)
This is Texas.
This is a Global company lured to Texas by state tax giveaways and a âFriendly regulatory environmentâ
So the company is a âcustomerâ, not a taxpayer.
Smoothing things over PR-wise so the public doesnât see the downside of Small Government is part of their âHeritageâ.
This time it didnât work.
Translation: âWeâre just making shit up, but we feel comfortable that we can stonewall, in court, anyone from outside a 1.5 mile radius who sues us.â
Fertilizer plants are a touchy subject, when a lot of your voters are shall we say very conflicted about Patriots like Timothy McVey, who used fertilizer in his crime.