So, are we safe to assume that fertilizer>gunpowder in the explosion scale? 
So, are we safe to assume that fertilizer>gunpowder in the explosion scale?
Sky_Render wrote: If I saw this when pulling into a Sonic drivethru, I would assume North Korea just dropped a nuke on us.
That pic is EPIC. With the Sonic sign up there, and then what's left of the "Boom". See...Sonic Boom.
EastCoastMojo wrote:Sky_Render wrote: If I saw this when pulling into a Sonic drivethru, I would assume North Korea just dropped a nuke on us.That pic is EPIC. With the Sonic sign up there, and then what's left of the "Boom". See...Sonic Boom.
EastCoastMojo wrote:
That is what happens when I eat a lot of raw vegetables on the same day I drink Hennipen.
Latest reports are registered 2.1 on the richter scale at a USGS site . . . 20 miles away.
We are about an hour away and go there quite often. We are taking in some of the displaced people in our home tonight, and for the foreseeable future.
We don't even know who they are yet or how many.
Jerry wrote: I used to work as a contractor fixing steam/water/chemical/whatever leaks on-stream (still running and leaking). We went into many starch plants and the dust flying around always made me nervous about explosions.
It's what we in the engineering trade refer to as Class 2, Division 1 - Explosive Dust present under normal conditions. These types of facilities are designed to minimize the explosion risk as much as possible. For this to happen a number of system failures and/or safety protocol breaches need to occur.
I just got done approving a tank of fertilizer
This guy has a couple of phone videos of him and swmbo driving through West shortly after the explosion.
http://www.youtube.com/user/plannuier/videos?view=0
This is my home town. The Family is all ok, but just to point out a couple things.
The plant shuts down at 5, no one working was there at the time. There are two explosion videos and the one with the dumpster is where its pointed at on the map above.
yamaha wrote: So, are we safe to assume that fertilizer>gunpowder in the explosion scale?
Yup, its an easy way to make things go boom. A lot of domestic bombings use the base of Fertilizer to make it.
Ian F wrote: It's what we in the engineering trade refer to as Class 2, Division 1 - Explosive Dust present under normal conditions. These types of facilities are designed to minimize the explosion risk as much as possible. For this to happen a number of system failures and/or safety protocol breaches need to occur.
The dust was not what went on this one though. Anhydrous Ammonia is what went.
Thinkkker, how much of the town is truly unlivable tonight? As I mentioned earlier we have some West people coming to stay with us till they can get back to their homes.
Thinkkker wrote:yamaha wrote: So, are we safe to assume that fertilizer>gunpowder in the explosion scale?Yup, its an easy way to make things go boom. A lot of domestic bombings use the base of Fertilizer to make it.
Like OKC Federal Building.
And all that fertilizer fit into a rental truck. I can imagine this plant exploding being orders of magnitude more powerful.
According to the WSJ, a 2011 safety plan filed with the EPA showed the plant did not have firewalls or an automatic shutdown system. Not good.
Jeez, has Michael Bay been directing this entire week so far?
In reply to Thinkkker:
Indeed, I was being a smart ass, but yea......certain fertilizers are nasty explosives.
Glad your family is safe 
Please note that, while you can make a very potent explosive mixing AN and a liquid fuel, actually setting it off involves highly controlled, near impossible to steal, extremely difficult to make primary explosives, like TNT, C4, or various commercial blasting agents, along with the also controlled and hard to come by blasting caps. ANFO by itself is pretty useless stuff.
Dust in itself can be quite explosive. Just search for "dust factory explosion." Apple had a bit of a PR fiasco a year or two ago when there was an explosion at one of its contractor's factories.
I am just waiting for the "and this is in our food! All food producers are evil!" Response. Even grain can explode if the conditions are right.
And of course, this explosion is a real tragedy, especially because there was likely some long-standing oversight that could have prevented it from happening.
carguy123 wrote: Thinkkker, how much of the town is truly unlivable tonight? As I mentioned earlier we have some West people coming to stay with us till they can get back to their homes.
I know a few block radius from where the explosion was is bad. Outside of that, MANY broken windows.. I havent talked to my Uncle directly, but I know his house is ok. They live a mile or so south off Reagan road the school, apt, and rest home are on. He just had a shifted garage. I havent been through the town though to know directly to comment much further.
RexSeven wrote: According to the WSJ, a 2011 safety plan filed with the EPA showed the plant did not have firewalls or an automatic shutdown system. Not good.
Hmmmm, not a huge surprise it thats true. My mom actually worked there for a couple of years about 18 years back. The "plant" has been there for YEARS. Its more of a storage/transfer place to get the fertilizer prepped from trains to go to the fields for work.
Mitchell; yeah, I got to play with the dust explosion while at A&M. I had a class on grain storage and processing so we created the dust explosions.
In reply to Kenny_McCormic:
I hate it because the guys using it around us dgaf if they are venting when turning or if they are applying it when its too wet. That said, driving through their cloud with the windows down gave me a dry sore throat for about a week.
We use liquid nitrogen side dressed. Less dangerous if you berkeley up......plus there aren't any tanks for the math labs to steal.
Mitchell, grain dust explosions are no joke either. Same thing with coal dust. Its all bad, people end up hurt/killed, and some can be prevented.....I honestly do feel for these people. This sucks, and I'm saddened to hear about fatalities.
yamaha wrote: We use liquid nitrogen side dressed. Less dangerous if you berkeley up......plus there aren't any tanks for the math labs to steal.
Darn those thieving mathematicians!
RexSeven wrote: According to the WSJ, a 2011 safety plan filed with the EPA showed the plant did not have firewalls or an automatic shutdown system. Not good.
Kind of irresponsible reporting on the part of the WSJ.
A firewall would not have helped at all. A blast wall, perhaps, but not a firewall. Firewalls are designed to slow the spread of fires to give time to escape, not stop them. It burned for several hours before the explosion. A firewall would not have offered more protection.
Meanwhile, the WSJ had no criticism for the questionable decisions on the part of the emergency response leaders who had volunteers with no training in fighting a fire in a fertilizer plant in harm's way. Lives were lost because of poor training, policies, enforcement, and leadership, and the WSJ was more interested in talking about air permit renewals in 2004 and odor complaints in 2006.
Odor complaints? Seriously? It's a fertilizer plant. It smells like E36 M3.
I feel terrible for those harmed in this incident, and am in no way dismissing the dangers in an industrial environment such as this, but the WSJ doesn't need to be on a witch hunt looking for the big bad evil corporation while turning a blind eye to the governmental policies and leadership that failed.
Irresponsible journalism only encourages irresponsible government and leadership.
SVreX wrote:yamaha wrote: We use liquid nitrogen side dressed. Less dangerous if you berkeley up......plus there aren't any tanks for the math labs to steal.Darn those thieving mathematicians!
Cheats and liars, too....statistics.
yamaha wrote: In reply to Kenny_McCormic: I hate it because the guys using it around us dgaf if they are venting when turning or if they are applying it when its too wet. That said, driving through their cloud with the windows down gave me a dry sore throat for about a week. We use liquid nitrogen side dressed.
Just for clarification, do you mean that you fertilize with soluble nitrogen in fertigation lines, or do you mean something else by "liquid nitrogen?"
http://photos.oregonlive.com/photo-essay/2013/04/aerial_photos_of_damage_by_fer.html
Amazing photos. It appears that there's 2 fire trucks in that mess. I think we know what happened to the people manning them. Thoughts/prayers to the families.
Bobzilla wrote: http://photos.oregonlive.com/photo-essay/2013/04/aerial_photos_of_damage_by_fer.html Amazing photos. It appears that there's 2 fire trucks in that mess. I think we know what happened to the people manning them. Thoughts/prayers to the families.
Wow. Those are some incredible pictures of the damage.
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