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The Night West Exploded: Why 540,000 Pounds Was Hidden From Everyone
The Night West Exploded: Why 540,000 Pounds Was Hidden From Everyone
The shock of a 2.1-magnitude blast, a 93-foot-wide crater and 15 dead - ten of them first responders - began at 7:50:38 PM on April 17, 2013, in West, Texas. How did 540,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate sit undisclosed for decades under a small-town fertilizer plant, unseen by the people who needed to know?
In this episode, we tell the sequence of events that led from a volunteer fire call to a catastrophic double blast, and trace the regulatory gaps and filings that left a massive hazard off the radar - what exactly failed…
The skinny
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