West, TX

As I'm sure you're aware, on April 17th, a fertilizer plant exploded in West, TX. The blast destroyed a nearby apartment complex, a nursing home, schools, and many houses in the vicinity, and damaged hundreds more. Of the 2,800 residents of West, 15 were killed as a result, most of them first responders who had been called to the fire which led to the explosion.



The Middle School

 Not long after, my team was informed of the possibility of our deployment to West as part of the Disaster Survivor Assistance Team (DSAT). We were issued equipment to use in the field, and told to pack our belongings. We were waiting on the President to say the word. Most disasters only require Public Assistance from FEMA. This means, the federal government will assist the state with repairing things like roads, bridges, and government buildings. Individual Assistance (IA) is what helps individual homeowners. Region VI felt pretty confident that Obama would sign off for IA for the West explosion, so we packed up all our stuff and were ready to leave by last Tuesday. It didn't come through, so we pulled out enough stuff to sleep and then packed up again the next day, because if it was declared, they wanted boots on the ground as soon as possible. Still nothing. We stayed "FEMA flexible" until Saturday, at which point we started to settle back into our rooms at Camp Copass, because we were told that the longer it takes to go through, the smaller the chance that it will. However, while we were at work on Wednesday, our TL came in and announced we were going to West. Because of the process of getting clearance through AmeriCorps as well, we didn't actually leave until Friday around noon.

Arriving in West was a bit surreal. As we pulled into town, we began to see boarded up windows, and as we drove closer to the site of the explosion, we began to see bricks blown off the side of houses, garage doors caved in, and piles of debris set out on the sidewalks.

We got to the high school, where FEMA and other agencies had set up shop. It was all a bit surreal. We made our way to what used to be an English classroom, and was now the DSAT office. On one wall an English assignment dated "April 17, 2013" was written on the whiteboard, on another wall the whiteboard was covered with blown up satellite pictures of west with different colored dots representing different degrees of damage, the contact info for different agencies, meeting times, and priorities. And here we were amidst the seasoned FEMA staff, in our crisp blue jackets, feeling a bit out of place.

We went over the game plan, were introduced to the FEMA reservists we'd be working with, and tested out our systems and connections to make sure our equipment was ready to go out in the field. Then a couple of the staff members took us for a drive around the town to see what kind of damage we would be dealing with. If you followed the story, you probably saw images of the apartment complex next to the plant. The walls were completely blasted out from one side to another, with the contents strewn across the lawn. A car on the side closest to the plant was crushed. The roof of the nursing home on the opposite side had fallen in. The way I understand it from what was explained to me is that the negative pressure basically caused the houses to collapse in on themselves. All the windows shattered in, leaving shards of glass all over the floors. The cielings caved as well, covering most people's possessions with insulation and fiberglass that's impossible to remove. Whole walls were caved in in some houses, or blown completely through and out the otherside, leaving the odd sight of a kitchen littered with sheetrock and the sun shining through from the other side. On the outside of some houses, things like "God Bless West" and "West Strong" were spraypainted on the brick. After some safety briefings and a welcome from the local emergency manager, we headed to the Econolodge in the neighboring town of Hillsboro, our home for the next few days until we can secure other lodging, and tried to get some sleep before our first day in the field.

The apartment complex

Today, I was up at 5:15 so that we could all shower before heading out at 6:30. We met back at the high school, had some time to do some planning and preparing, had a morning briefing at 8:00, and partnered up with our reservists. To start the morning out, our partner took Ian and I to the Czech Stop, a pretty well-known stop along I-35, where many people pull over to grab a kolache or any of the yummy Czech pastries served in the bakery there. We stopped there for gas, and went in to grab some breakfast. The lines at the bakery counter were huge, and as Ian and I walked in, he muttered to me, "I've never been more aware of my uniform and badge as I am right now." We had FEMA on our shirt, and that all of a sudden meant a lot of things. To everyone who saw us, it meant someone with inside information, someone who was supposed to have the answers, someone to blame. However, as we found out throughout the day, most people in West are not looking for someone to blame. For the most part, there's not the kind of mistrust or resentment here that people sometimes feel towards FEMA in other disasters. As we stood in line, a woman behind me thanked me for being here and helping the survivors. She asked me where I'm from, and when I told her South Dakota, she said she originally came from Minnesota. She told me it would take me a bit to get used to the weather, and that it took her a while to adjust when she moved down here.

Afterwards, we stopped for a few minutes at the Disaster Recovery Center to check in, and then drove around the most damaged zone, to do some assesment. Like I mentioned, West is a town of 2,800 people. Driving around town, it was easy to compare it to my hometown of Winner, population 3,300. I imagined what it would be like to come back to Winner and see the nursing home roof collapsed and caving in, the high school gym destroyed, one side of the middle school burned up and the other side torn apart, my neighbors' houses, my friends' houses, or my house with the windows busted out, the walls caving in, and nothing but rubble inside. In a town that small, everybody knows everybody. Some people went blind from the explosion. Some lost their hearing. With 15 fatalities, everybody is grieving. It's funeral after funeral. I can't even imagine.

A big part of the morning was spent dealing with technical issues. FEMA recently devloped a way for teams to register applicants through iPads when they are going door to door, so that if the person is unable to go to the Disaster Recovery Center, or doesn't have phone or internet access, they're still able to register. This is just starting to get used, so there are still a few hiccups. These were dealt with, however, so in the afternoon, I started going door to door with Samantha and a different FEMA reservist. We knocked on doors in the zone of town where most homes were damaged but not destroyed, gave people information about assistance, checked their status if they'd already registered, and registered them if they wanted to.



The Nursing Home



It was not the impersonal encounter that you might imagine when hearing about FEMA coming to someone's door. The FEMA employees are extremely concerned with each individual and each household's welfare. They will take the time to talk with the survivors, hear their stories, discuss their options and do what they can to comfort and reassure them. Everyone - literally every single person that we talked to - was warm, welcoming, kind, and thankful. They were just trying to figure out what to do next. They gave us directions to neighbors they were concerned about, to make sure we connected with them. They talked about how thankful everyone was that not more people were badly injured or lost their lives. And if you look around the town, it's really hard to believe that they didn't. 

We went around until 6:00, when we met back at the high school for a quick meeting, where we heard from the other teams, about the people they'd talked to and the stories they'd heard. Tomorrow's another big day, it's late, and I'm exhausted. More to come.