the culture of life in Texas City

[Cocoa]

Texas City, indeed...

http://news4colorado.com/nationworld/topstories_story_083142036.html

<snip>

“Basically, it was one big boom,” he said. “It’s a shame that people have to get killed and hurt trying to make a dollar in these plants, but that’s part of reality.”

The plant and town, population 40,000, have dealt with two other recent refinery accidents.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the refinery nearly $110,000 after two employees were burned to death by superheated water in September.

Another explosion forced the evacuation of the plant for several hours last March. Afterward, OSHA fined the refinery $63,000 for 14 safety violations, including problems with its emergency shutdown system and employee training.

Texas City is the site of the worst industrial accident in U.S. history. In 1947, a fire aboard a ship at the Texas City docks triggered a huge explosion that killed 576 people and left fires burning in the city for days.

“Welcome to life in Texas City,” Marion Taylor, 55, said Wednesday. “I was born here and pretty much, it happens from time to time.”

[DBoon]

1. today Texas City

tomorrow the rest of the USA

Texas is the model for Busherica. No liberals will be allowed to shackle our free enterprise system in the future.

[UdoKier]

2. I was born and raised on the gulf coast of Texas

until my parents moved us to El Paso.

The whole area is full of enormous refineries, and the horizon of the gulf is dotted with offshore oil platforms.

The smell of petrochemicals can be overwhelming, and for a coastal area, which some boosters try to dub "The Texas Riviera", it truly is a grim area of the country. From Corpus Christi southward, it's a bit more pleasant...

[Bridget Burke]

3. It's good that you avoid using petrochemical products....

Otherwise, these people would be working & dying for you...

[Cocoa]

5. I wonder if they could improve safety

Congress, maybe, or the Bush administration, if they're not too busy.

I also wonder if BP will be held accountable.

:shrug:

[FrankBooth]

4. I was born in Texas City

and my grandfather worked in those refineries, and was working there during the 1947 explosion.

That being said, I haven't lived in the area since I was 6, but I'm sure yesterday's explosion brought back some memories for my father.

[Zuni]

6. The 'Culture of Life' fights the OSHA

leading to thousands of preventable accidents every year

[Cocoa]

7. Libertarian Republican "has faith in the corporations"

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3101712

Rep. Ron Paul, whose district includes Texas City, said the explosion reminded him of a day in the early 1970s when another deadly blast rocked a nearby chemical plant.

At the time, he was a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist and was working in a Brazoria County hospital when four critically injured people were brought in.

"All four later died from burns," said Paul, who moved to Surfside in 1968.

"It made it very real to me," he said. "I knew what kind of an area I was living in."

<snip>

For Paul and many of his constituents, living with the danger of chemical plants is a daily reality.

But he said he has faith that the corporations "have every reason in the world to promote safety."