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Texas town holds no grudge against exploded fertilizer plant owner
WEST, Texas (Reuters) – When Texas farmer Donald Adair bought the floundering West Fertilizer Co in 2004, his neighbors in the rolling countryside near West were grateful he had saved them from driving extra miles to Waco or Hillsboro to buy fertilizer, feed and tools.
After the plant exploded last week, flattening homes, damaging schools, killing 14 people and leaving some 200 others with injuries including burns, lacerations and broken bones, they still described the 83-year-old owner as honest and good.
“I like him very well, he’s helped me out,” said William Supak, a retired farmer who lives a few hundred yards (meters) from a farm house owned by the Adairs, and recalled a time when his neighbor helped save his hay by putting out a fire.
As he paused from mowing the grass in front of his house, Supak said the disaster in West did not change his view of Adair, whom he said he sometimes sees using a powered wheel chair to fetch his mail.
“I don’t see him very often, but I understand that he’s not in too good a health, said Supak.
Another neighbor of Adair, who asked not to be identified, described him as a “good guy.”
“It’s a farming community, everybody knows him. Like I said, it happened, and (to blame him) don’t make good sense.”
Five days after the explosion, school reopened on Monday and grieving families planned funerals for the paramedics and firefighters who died trying to fight the blaze.
Investigators said they still had not determined the cause of the explosion, and the people who lived closest to the plant had not yet been allowed to return to their homes.
Adair has stayed out of the public eye, saying nothing since the statement he issued on Friday in which he vowed to cooperate with the investigation. A spokesman for Adair said he had been at the West Church of Christ, where he is an elder, on Wednesday night when he learned of the fire and drove to the scene to urge people to move to safety.
“As a lifelong resident, my heart is broken with grief for the tragic losses to so many families in our community,” Adair said in the statement. “The selfless sacrifice of first responders who died trying to protect all of us is something I will never get over.”
WHITE TWO-STORY HOUSE
Adair lives about five miles from West in a neat, white two-story house set back from the road down a gravel driveway marked by a green John Deere mailbox. The house is surrounded by farm buildings and equipment, and has a basketball hoop.
A Reuters reporter went to knock on the door as a silver Lincoln sedan rolled slowly down the drive and pulled up. A silver-haired woman with curls, matching one neighbor’s description of Adair’s wife Wanda, said: “Leave this property now,” pausing to add, “Please.”
Six of Adair’s seven children also live in the West area. Daughter Diane, a nurse, helped provide triage to injured residents after the blast, said Daniel Keeney, a crisis communications expert who is speaking on behalf of Adair.
Most of the dozen residents interviewed by Reuters, including farmers, church members and local business owners who know Donald Adair, did not fault him for operating the plant so close to a residential area or for storing large quantities of the hazardous materials ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia.
The privately held fertilizer plant has been in operation since 1962, long before the homes and nearby schools were built, and the fertilizer was needed by farmers, they said.
“They provided a huge service to this area,” said Mimi Irwin, owner of the Village Bakery, which sells kolache pastries in downtown West and hails itself as the first all-Czech bakery in Texas. “People are just sick about it.”
Irwin said the Adair family is generous in donating to community events, such as church bazaars and sports tournaments.
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-town-holds-n…58463.html
2013-04-23 16:32:08
Source: http://yeoldefalseflag.com/thread-texas-town-holds-no-grudge-against-exploded-fertilizer-plant-owner
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