A massive manhunt and siege in West Texas now?

[MineralMan]

105. They will be held to account. That doesn't happen

overnight, though. First, an investigation has to be done to determine exactly what happened and why. In the case of a disastrous fire and explosion, this can take a long time. If the company is insured, which it certainly should be, claims will be filed by those who were affected. More investigations will take place before those claims are paid.

Lawsuits will certainly result from this and similar disasters. In today's legal environment, those can take a very long time to be decided.

Criminal charges? Well, those occur, as well, but not until all the investigations are done.

The reality is that, by the time things happen, we will all have forgotten about this. The people affected will not have forgotten, though, and the accounts will remain to be settled.

It looks like this business owner violated some laws that require reporting things. Penalties for such violations are usually fines, though. Unless some criminal negligence caused this explosion, it is unlikely that the owner will be doing any time in jail or prison. But, we won't know that for months or years.

The bottom line is that owners of businesses have a responsibility to operate legally and safely. Some do, and some don't. But even the ones that do operate completely withing regulations and laws can experience a destructive fire or even a devastating explosion. It happens many times a year in the United States and elsewhere.

Investigations are underway. I'm not part of those investigations, so I don't have a lot of information about why what happened in West, Texas happened. Perhaps I'll find out, but I may have forgotten about this incident because of others before that information is available.