The cost of deregulation
Texas on Fire, Again and Again
By BILL MINUTAGLIO, NYT
AUSTIN, Tex.
SHORTLY before a fertilizer plant exploded in West, Tex., on Wednesday, a father was driving in the vicinity with his 12-year-old daughter. They had stopped to take a video of what the man thought was a large fire swirling around the local high school.
He chatted with his daughter as he aimed a camera at the flames, which he later estimated were 150 to 300 yards away. He seemed to have faith that no harm would come. Suddenly, there was a bone-shaking hell on earth as the plant erupted.
In the jangly video, which has gone viral online, you can hear the desperate, heart-wrenching plea from the child begging her father to flee the scene. In her panicked voice she yells to her father that she has lost her hearing.
The explosion in West, which killed at least 14 people, is now entering a dark pantheon of events in Texas, ones that will surely lead to debates in the state about government regulation and oversight — or the lack thereof. About what “public safety” really means, implies, entails. About Texas’ passionate history of pushing back at what some see as big-government intrusion — a trend that traces back to the regulation-free days of wildcatting in the oil patches.
(More here.)
AUSTIN, Tex.
SHORTLY before a fertilizer plant exploded in West, Tex., on Wednesday, a father was driving in the vicinity with his 12-year-old daughter. They had stopped to take a video of what the man thought was a large fire swirling around the local high school.
He chatted with his daughter as he aimed a camera at the flames, which he later estimated were 150 to 300 yards away. He seemed to have faith that no harm would come. Suddenly, there was a bone-shaking hell on earth as the plant erupted.
In the jangly video, which has gone viral online, you can hear the desperate, heart-wrenching plea from the child begging her father to flee the scene. In her panicked voice she yells to her father that she has lost her hearing.
The explosion in West, which killed at least 14 people, is now entering a dark pantheon of events in Texas, ones that will surely lead to debates in the state about government regulation and oversight — or the lack thereof. About what “public safety” really means, implies, entails. About Texas’ passionate history of pushing back at what some see as big-government intrusion — a trend that traces back to the regulation-free days of wildcatting in the oil patches.
(More here.)
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