Texas

The mayor of West, Texas, said between 35 and 40 people are believed to be dead in a massive fertilizer plant explosion “because they are unaccounted for and still missing.” “We are out there searching the rubble, looking in each and every house. We are trying to locate each and every citizen,” Mayor Tommy Muska said in a telephone interview with The Times. Muska said he had arrived at that count because all the other residents and first-responders in the area have been identified.

Moments after a flaming fertilizer plant exploded in the town of West, Texas, two women immediately leaped behind the wheels of their cars. Alicia McCowan, 24, had just completed a shift at the local Sonic drive-in Wednesday night when the blast struck. Her boys, 2 and 4, were with a baby sitter in McCowan's apartment near the fertilizer plant, where an enormous mushroom cloud had materialized. She raced for her car. At Gladys Quilter's home on the other side of the small town, “Criminal Minds” was just coming on the television when the explosion shook her house.

April Puckett logged onto Twitter just 10 minutes after a massive explosion rocked her hometown of West, Texas. Puckett, a 19-year-old freshman at Texas State University in San Marcos, began seeing friends' pictures of a looming mushroom cloud that had formed over the tiny central Texas town. She immediately got in her car and made the two-hour drive north to meet her family. Her mother and sister had been watching television in the living room of their home, less than half a mile from the plant, when the explosion hit. The force of the blast broke every window in the house, knocked knick-knacks off their shelves and flung the kitchen and bathroom doors open.

In the moments after an explosion tore through a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, dispatchers pleaded for help for downed firefighters, summoning assistance from nearby agencies and directing fire trucks, haz-mat units and other responders to scenes of destruction throughout the town. “Y'all have anybody available, I am requesting you. They have firefighters down,” says a woman early on. “Firefighters down. Again, there has been an explosion, there are firefighters down.” A responder calls from a home for senior citizens, describing it as “institutionally damaged.” “We have many people down,” he said.

WEST, Texas -- In the dimly lit sanctuary of Assumption Catholic Church, hundreds gathered here to embrace their friends and family, to cry and to pray for answers just about 24 hours after the tragedy that has left this small East Texas town reeling. They tried to take stock of what has unfolded here, and tried to search for the clarity that has evaded them thus far. "Our hearts are hurting, our hearts are broken," said Father Ed Karasek, pastor at the parish. "Our town of West will never be the same, but we will persevere.

The blast at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant on Wednesday night was so massive that investigators believe it probably involved a significant amount of ammonium nitrate, a chemical that some scientists say should be regulated as an explosive. In a report filed with the Texas Department of State Health Services on Feb. 26, West Fertilizer Co. said that it had up to 270 tons of ammonium nitrate at its facility, along with up to 100,000 pounds of liquid ammonia. The exact amounts on hand at the plant are not yet known, officials said.

WEST, Texas - Alicia McCowan had just finished her shift at the Sonic drive-in when the blast erupted nearby, leveling buildings in a wide circle. Above, a mushroom cloud bloomed against a yellow-pink sky. She knew the source - the West Fertilizer Co. plant, close to the apartment where a baby sitter was watching her two young sons. She rushed to the damaged apartment building and screamed her kids' names. She found Brayden, 4, dragging Kaegan, 2, down the stairs, and both were OK. But where was their baby sitter?

WEST, Texas -- Officials confirmed Thursday that 11 first responders were among the dead in a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant that injured at least 160 and devastated a section of this small town. State public safety officials have declined to specify how many people were killed in the explosion. Tom Muska, mayor of West, said early in the day that he feared the death toll could be as high as 35 to 40, “because they are unaccounted for and still missing.” Later in the evening Muska revised his estimate to about 14 after crews had searched 80% of the damaged homes and 75% of the apartments.  "It's still hard to tell.

Even as as President Obama pledged federal assistance to the devastated community, morning rainfall was hampering search and rescue efforts Thursday at the site of the West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion, which killed as many as 15 people and injured 160. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said more than 200 law enforcement officers from throughout Texas are trying to recover bodies from the debris and rescue possible survivors. The explosion destroyed and damaged homes and leveled apartment buildings within a half-mile radius of the close-knit town, located about 20 miles north of Waco.

When the showroom floor of a West, Texas, auto dealership began to shake Wednesday night, general manager Ronnie Sykora knew something was very wrong. Then Sykora heard the news: A nearby fertilizer plant had caught fire and exploded. He rushed to prepare for people whose homes had been destroyed. “We were ready,” Sykora said. “We figured they could sleep on the floor. But nobody came.” In West and the small towns that surround it, businesses and churches opened their doors to people made homeless by the deadly fertilizer plant explosion.