The deadly explosion ripped through the fertilizer plant late on Wednesday, injuring more than 200 people, destroying 50 homes and damaging other buildings including a school and nursing home, authorities said.
An aerial view shows investigators walking through the aftermath of a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in the town of West, near Waco, Texas April 18, 2013.
Photo by Ron Jenkins/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT permalink
A flag is flown at half staff in West, Texas, near the scene of the fertilizer plant that exploded Wednesday night in in the town of 2,8000 on Thursday, April 18, 2013.
KUT photographers Filipa Rodrigues and Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon traveled to the town of West with StateImpact Texas to document the story. You can see their images, along with photos from wire services and state officials, in the gallery above.
Criselda Avila lost her job at the Cargill Beef Processing Plant in Plainview. Now she's unsure what she'll do and what will happen to the Southern Plains town she calls home.
Irene and Ruben Olivas say the ripple effect of the plant closure threatens the bakery where they work.
By the time the cows arrived at Criselda Avila’s work station at the Cargill Excel Beef Processing Plant in Plainview, they had already been slaughtered, skinned and gutted. The carcasses came in hanging from a long chain that ran over the plant floor. They were divided up and divided again. Avila worked on skirt steaks.
“You gotta spread it open and then cut the little skirt off, and then throw that on the table and then peeling and just trimming the fat off is what it was,” she remembered recently, sitting in her living room. “You know, fajitas.”
It was numbingly repetitive work. More than 4,500 cows went through the plant every day. So when Avila was done with one, there was always another behind it. Then, on the last day of January, she saw something she never expected to see.
Photo courtesy of Criselda Avila
A group picture taken the day the last cow came through the Cargill Plant.
“There were the last few cows, then the last cow was coming down the chain, and people there were just banging our hooks,” she said. “People started crying, like ‘oh my god this is the end of it.’”
That was how the city of Plainview lost over 2,000 jobs. After years of drought, the U.S. cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1952. Cargill Meat Solutions, the company that owns the plant, says there are simply not enough cows in existence to keep the plant running. For years ranchers across Texas have been cutting back their herds in response to the historically dry weather, but this is the first time those cuts have reached up the supply chain, to hit the industrial heart of a Texas city. The plant closure could have wide sweeping ramifications across the region. Continue Reading →
Photo by Elizabeth Trovall, StateImpact TX. permalink
Owner of Evergreen Farms, Mike Walterscheidt, trims Fir tree branches to use for homemade wreaths.
Photo by Elizabeth Trovall, StateImpact TX permalink
Sprinklers at Evergreen Farms keep the pre-cut trees moist during Texas' hot winter.
Photo by Elizabeth Trovall, StateImpact TX permalink
While owners Mike and Beth are hard at work, their dog rests on the cement porch at the farm.
Photo by Elizabeth Trovall, StateImpact TX permalink
Young Texas evergreens can still grow tall if rainfall increases in 2013.
Photo by Elizabeth Trovall, StateImpact TX permalink
Customers at Evergreen Farms ride the trailer to the tree fields where they can pick out and cut their own tree.
Photo by Elizabeth Trovall, StateImpact TX permalink
Evergreen Farms owners lined up northern Fir trees in the cutting field.
Drought takes no prisoners, and Christmas trees are no exception. The 2011 drought decimated Texas wildlife, and not even resilient evergreens could take the heat. This left Christmas tree farmers in Texas with little or no trees to sell during the holidays. Some farms, like Evergreen Farms in Elgin, shipped in trees from Washington State and North Carolina to sell instead. Other farms had no choice but to close their doors.
Landfills keep on producing methane for decades. This is the entrance to a city landfill in Houston and though closed in 1970, it's listed by the US EPA as a potential project to produce methane for nearby industries.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are 27 landfills in Texas that are producing enough methane gas to make electricity or provide fuel to power industrial equipment. The agency says another 57 landfills are candidates for such projects.
“Texas is one of the few remaining states with a large number of landfills that don’t already have landfill gas energy projects and may have the potential to support them,” the EPA wrote in a lengthy statement emailed to StateImpact Texas.
The LCRA trucks water into Spicewood Beach. The Agency came under fire for selling Spicewood Beaches water in the runup to the well failure early this year.
The first indication that things are still not right in Spicewood Beach comes as you reach town. You’re greeted with a welcome sign and a notice that stage four water restrictions remain in effect. It’s been nearly a year since the small Highland Lakes community earned the distinction of being the first town in Texas to run dry during the great drought. The situation remains much the same. In some ways it’s gotten worse.
For one thing, there are a lot more ‘For Sale’ signs in front of a lot more houses.
“There’s vacancies all through here and unbelievably low prices, but there’s not takers. Who wants a house with no water?” asks Jim Watson, sitting next to his wife Wanda in their two story home.
Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign captured this image during the 1999 Leonid meteor storm
Photo by Jamal Nasrallah/AFP via Getty Images permalink
AZRAK, JORDAN: Photo dated 18 November 1999 shows a Leonid meteor storm over the Azrak desert, 90km east of Amman. The storm packed up to some 1,500 meteros per hour visible with the eye. The Leonids - so called because they appear in the sky in the region of the constellation of Leo - are a stream of minute dust particles trailing behind the Tempel-Tuttle comet, which is visible from earth every 33 years.
Four Views Of The Leonid Meteor Shower Of 1966, A Peak Year For This Active Yearly Shower. The Next Leonid Peak Is In The Years 1998 To 2000. The Leonids Make Their Appearance, And Take Their Name, From A Point In The Constellation Leo. These Pictures Were Taken On November 18Th, 1966, From The Kitt Peak National Observatory Near Tucson, Arizona.
Photo by MarkGregory007 via Flickr/Creative Commons permalink
Photo by Stephen Little via Flickr/Creative Commons permalink
Photo by John Mottern/AFP via Getty Images permalink
SHERBORN, UNITED STATES: The green streak of a meteor seen in the southern sky of New England photographed in Sherborn, Massachusetts early 18 November, 2001 and was one of thousands that entered the earth's atmosphere during a major meteor shower. The shower, which occurs over several days every mid-November, is called the Leonids because it appears to come from the constellation of Leo.
This Bright Leonid Fireball Is Shown During The Storm Of 1966 In The Sky Above Wrightwood, Calif. The Leonids Occur Every Year On Or About Nov. 18Th And Stargazers Are Tempted With A Drizzle Of 10 Or 20 Meteors Fizzing Across The Horizon Every Hour. But Every 33 Years A Rare And Dazzling Leonids Storm Can Occur But, Astronomers Believe The 1999 Edition Of The Leonids Probably Won'T Equal 1966, Which Peaked At 144,000 Meteors Per Hour.
Stars of the racetrack won’t be the only lights in the firmament this weekend. It’s also peak time for viewing the Leonid meteor shower. “The shower should produce perhaps a dozen or so “shooting stars” per hour,” UT’s StarDate at McDonald Observatory writes. “The best view comes in the wee hours of the morning, as your part of Earth turns most directly into the meteor stream.”
Peak viewing times should be between midnight and dawn Saturday night.
“Just remember, a meteor shower peak prediction is not an ironclad guarantee,” EarthSky writes. “If it’s clear, you might see nearly as many meteors in the predawn darkness on Friday, November 16 or Sunday, November 18. The days before and after that might feature meteors as well, as we pass through the Leonid meteor stream in space.”
A young boy runs along Rockaway Beach as Hurricane Sandy begins to affect the area on October 29, 2012 in the Queens borough of New York City.
Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Tim Kuklewski/ /U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images permalink
In this handout image supplied by the US Coast Guard, The HMS Bounty, a 180-foot sailboat, is submerged in the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Sandy approximately 90 miles southeast of Hatteras, North Carolina, on October 29, 2012. Of the 16-person crew, the Coast Guard rescued 14, recovered a woman who was later pronounced dead and are searching for the captain. The HMS Bounty was built for the 1962 film Mutiny On The Bounty and was also used in Pirates Of The Caribbean.
A couple walks in the rain as a darkened Manhattan is viewed after much of the city lost electricity due to the affects of Hurricane Sandy on October 30, 2012 in New York, United States.
In this handout GOES satellite image provided by NASA, Hurricane Sandy, pictured at 1240 UTC, churns off the east coast on October 29, 2012 in the Atlantic Ocean.
Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images permalink
The Empire State Building towers in the background of an apartment buliding in Chelsea, New York City, with the facade broken off October 30, 2012 the morning after Hurricane Sandy.
Rising water, caused by Hurricane Sandy, rushes into a subterranian parking garage on October 29, 2012, in the Financial District of New York, United States.
Ocean Avenue is flooded caused by Hurricane Sandy, on October 29, 2012 in Cape May, The New Jersey coastline is feeling the full force of Sandy's heavy winds and record floodwaters.
A photographer shoots waves generated from the remnants Hurricane Sandy as they crash into the shoreline of Lake Michigan on October 30, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois. Waves up to 25 feet high generated by winds up to 50 miles-per-hour were expected on the lake.
A newspaper cabinet is washed up on Ocean Ave., on October 30, 2012 in Cape May, New Jersey.
Some six million people were without power this morning because of Hurricane Sandy, and at least 33 are dead, many of them killed by falling trees. Travel and transportation has largely come to a standstill in many areas of the Northeast. In the photos above, you can see the impact of one of the most destructive storms in the area’s history.
And while the storm’s physical damage is limited to the East, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been felt here in Texas. Many flights have been canceled at Texas airports. And several Texas utilities are sending staff East to help restore power in areas affected by Sandy.
Some thirty tree-trimming and eight distribution contractors from Austin Energy are headed Northeast to help, as are crews from Entergy, Oncor, and CenterPoint. AEP Texas is sending 81 employees to West Virginia to help AEP crews there restore power, and has released an additional 38 contact crews to help as well. And San Antonio’s CPS energy has a convoy of some 50 workers headed out to assist in restoring power in the Northeast.
People stand on the beach watching the heavy surf caused by the approaching Hurricane Sandy, on October 28, 2012 in Cape May, New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy is expected to hit the New Jersey coastline sometime on Monday bringing heavy winds and floodwaters.
Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images permalink
A sign on dispay in Grand Central Station in New York October 28, 2012 as the MTA has been began an orderly shutdown of commuter rail and subway service in preparation for Hurricane Sandy .
In this handout GOES satellite image provided by NASA, Hurricane Sandy, pictured at 1410 UTC, churns off the east coast on October 28, 2012 in the Atlantic Ocean.
A man walks on the boardwalk ahead of Hurricane Sandy on October 28, 2012 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Governor Chris Christie?s emergency declaration is shutting down the city?s casinos and 30,000 residents are being told to evacuate. (
A boarded-up store remains open for business as the first signs of Hurricane Sandy approach on October 28, 2012 in Fairfield, Connecticut. The storm, which could affect tens of millions of people in the eastern third of the U.S., is expected to bring days of rain, high winds and possibly heavy snow in parts of Ohio and West Virginia.
nly a few bread items remain on the shelves at the Waldbaums grocery store as Hurricane Sandy approaches on October 28, 2012 in Long Beach, New York.
Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images permalink
A man carrys a case of water down Lexington Avenue in midtown in New York October 28, 2012 as stores begin to close down in preparation for Hurricane Sandy .
A loader makes a sand barrier on the beach to help stop storm surge from approaching hurricane Sandy, on October 28, 2012 in Cape May, New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy is expected to hit the New Jersey coastline sometime on Monday bringing heavy winds and floodwaters.
As Hurricane Sandy cuts a path of destruction through the eastern states, many are wondering about the science behind this ‘Frankenstorm’ and whether it has any clear connection to global climate change.
“There is a hierarchy of weather events which scientists feel they understand well enough for establishing climate change links,” Frank writes. “Global temperature rises and extreme heat rank high on that list, but Hurricanes rank low.” That being said, Frank write that warmer ocean temperatures do lead to more evaporation, “and that likely leads to storms with more and more dangerous rainfall of the kind we saw with Hurricane Irene last year.”
In situations like Sandy, climate scientists will often use an analogy: climate change is like putting expected extreme weather events on steroids. These scientists say that while it’s difficult to immediately attribute specific events to climate change (though not impossible, according to Frank), it is possible to say that many of these events are made worse by it.
Photo by Ya-ko via Flickr/Creative Commons permalink
Photo by zharth via Flickr/Creative Commons permalink
Photo by Stefan27UF via Flickr/Creative Commons permalink
Photo by jpstanley via Flickr/Creative Commons permalink
Photo by Stefan27UF via Flickr/Creative Commons permalink
Stargazers are in for another treat this weekend. The Orionid meteor shower, an annual occurrence, will make its way across the sky late Saturday night into early Sunday morning.
The best hours to see the meteor shower will be at midnight Saturday until early Sunday morning, with a peak around 2 a.m. StarDate magazine says you can expect to see some 25 meteors per hour. And some of them may look “familiar” — the meteor shower is composed of leftover debris from Halley’s comet.
The sky watchers at StarDate, a publication of the University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory, recommend getting as far away from cities as possible to see the shower. “Look for state or city parks or other safe, dark sites,” they write. “Lie on a blanket or reclining chair to get a full-sky view. If you can see all of the stars in the Little Dipper, you have good dark-adapted vision.” The big, open skies of Texas — if you can get far enough away from city lights — should be perfect for witnessing the event should skies stay clear. No rain is forecast for much of the state for Saturday night into Sunday. And the moon is only at a quarter and will set before midnight, so it shouldn’t interfere with seeing the shower.
More on the astronomy behind the celestial wonder from StarDate: Continue Reading →
Protestors from along the Keystone XL route, from North Texas and as far away as Montana, came to Beaumont in support of the Hollands.
Faced with landowners who’ve refused to sell access to their property, lawyers for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline project—already under construction in Texas—told a judge in Beaumont that they’re doing only as the Texas legislature intended: using “eminent domain” and “condemnation” to gain access to private land over the protests of the landowners.
“The legislature came up with this scheme because they wanted to promote the development of oil and gas in the State of Texas,” said Tom Zabel, a Houston lawyer representing TransCanada. “Texas is the largest producing state in the nation. Why? Because the legislature has encouraged the production of oil and gas pipelines. Because you can’t have oil and gas production without pipelines.” Continue Reading →
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