A massive manhunt and siege in West Texas now?

[MineralMan]

20. Of course a lack of regulation contributes to industrial accidents

and disasters. So does complacency on the part of people who run and work in industry. Poorly-operated businesses in small towns all around the world are accidents waiting to happen, regulatory laws or not. I'll give you an example:

A number of years ago, I was visiting my parents in my home town. My father, who was the chief of the local volunteer fire department, had to do an inspection on a business operating in that small California town. Since I was there, I went with him. The company, like the one in West, Texas, was mostly an agricultural supply company. It was located in a part of town that edged up to open farmland, and the business was across the street from a residential neighborhood, with cattle grazing land on the other side.

Well, my dad did a walk-through of the place with me trailing along. As we went through the business's warehouse area, I noticed a large number of 55-gallon drums, stacked pyramid fashion on the back wall of the warehouse area. So, I wandered over to see what sorts of things were in those drums. Afterwards, I took my father aside.

I counted 20 drums of acetone, mixed in with drums of liquid herbicides and pesticides in those pyramids. I pointed that out to my father, who took another look. Now, I'm no chemist, and neither is my father, but we both know how volatile acetone is and what a low flashpoint it has. When we talked about what might happen if there were a fire in that warehouse, fueled by acetone and heating and burning the herbicides and pesticides in the adjacent drums, it was clear that there was a disaster in the making. The wall where they were stacked was on the street facing the residential neighborhood. Such a fire would have been a nightmare for the small fire department and for the residents of that neighborhood.

Complacency. To make a long story short, the company was forced to cease operations at that location by order of the fire department and given 48 hours to remove all drums containing anything flammable or toxic. They did so, because you didn't screw with my father in that town when it came to hazardous fire-department related stuff. The entire company packed up and moved to another town.

The people running the business didn't even understand the hazard they had created. They were morons. They just sold the stuff to the local farmers and other businesses. In many towns, such a situation would not have resulted in any action being taken, and the company would have continued its operations.