WEST, Texas (KWTX) The Waco-McLennan County Health District has launched a follow-up study on the long-term health impacts on West residents following the deadly April 2013 fertilizer plant explosion.
“The study will provide information on residents’ behavioral health, respiratory health, and other conditions associated with the explosion,” officials said in a press release.
“The findings of this study could be useful for the policy makers, health care providers, and public health officials in understanding long-term consequences associated with such incidences,” officials said.
Residents may complete the survey online starting Monday and continuing until May 31.
Face-to-face interviews will be conducted with residents who don’t complete the survey online from April 22 to May 3 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The powerful explosion on April 17, 2013, left 15 dead including 12 first responders, injured more than 200 and damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings including a nursing home, a two-story apartment building and three of West’s schools.
The blast affected a 37-block area and left a crater 90 feet wide and 12 feet deep.
A preliminary investigation completed about a month after the explosion identified three possible causes of the fire, two accidental and the third intentional.
In May 2013, investigators said they had determined that the fire was caused either by a battery-powered golf cart that was kept in the fertilizer and seed building in which the fire started, the building’s 120-volt electrical system or by an intentional criminal act.
In May 2016 federal investigators announced that the fire that caused the deadly and destructive fertilizer plant explosion was intentionally set.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced the findings during a news conference in West.
“This fire was a criminal act,” ATF Special Agent in Charge Robert Elder said.
The only hypothesis that couldn’t be eliminated through investigation and testing was that the fire in the seed room of the fertilizer plant’s building was incendiary, he said.
Investigators reached that conclusion after conducting more than 400 interviews and sifting through mounds of evidence and photos.
“All viable accidental and natural fire scenarios were hypothesized, tested, and eliminated,” Elder said.
What investigators don’t know is the intent of the person responsible for the fire, officials said.
The tragedy unfolded in just 19 minutes.
The fire started at 7:29 p.m. on April 17, 2013.
West firefighters were dispatched to the plant at 7:32 p.m., arrived at 7:38 p.m. and requested assistance from other departments at 7:41 p.m.
The plant exploded at 7:51 p.m.
As much as 64 tons of ammonium nitrate was stored in the building, 28 to 34 tons of which exploded.
An additional 20 to 30 tons in the building and another 100 tons in a nearby railcar did not explode.
By comparison, the amount of ammonium nitrate that exploded on April 17 in West was about 12 times the amount used in the truck bomb that blew the side off of the Albert P. Murrah federal building on April 19, 1995 in Oklahoma City.
In January, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board presented its report on its investigation of the deadly explosion, which included 18 safety recommendations aimed at preventing future such disasters.
The 265-page report said the town’s fertilizer plant lacked safety features that could have prevented the blast and says first responders weren’t adequately trained on how to respond to the fire that triggered the detonation.
The explosion was the result of “poor hazard awareness, regulatory oversight, inadequate emergency planning and the proximity of the facility to schools and neighboring communities,” CSB Chairperson Vanessa Allen Sutherland said.