Auto Glass Employees Visit West, Texas, to Lend a Hand
April 25, 2013

by Jenna Reed, jreed@glass.com

Blast-damaged apartments in West, Texas. Source: Mark Liston

When the fertilizer plant in West, Texas, exploded last week, the blast concussion broke glass as far away as 2 miles, according to Douglas Dotson of Glass Doctor-Heart of Texas.

Dotson's franchise is located in Waco, Texas, and he along with Mark Liston, president of Glass Doctor and blogger for glassBYTEs™, have gone into the area to lend a hand.

"Each day more areas are opened for owners and contractors to get to," says Dotson. "I have worked tornados when I was in Kansas and have traveled to hail storms and hurricanes [destruction area] in many states. But this is different than what I have seen before. The concussion has broken glass as far away as 2 miles, the closer you are, the worst it is. Almost every house will need much more than glass replaced, as ceilings also all fell in and doors were blown in."

The death toll from the explosion has now risen to 15, according to reports.

"If a person was treated and released from the hospital, that could mean a lot of things," Dotson says. "As an example, I had one person tell me they knew of a woman and two children who are now blind. Others have permanent hearing damage," Dotson says.

As for repairs, he says it's hard to access the area. But the damage is extensive.

"It's still not easy to get in and really the repairs have not started up to this point as it has been all about board-ups to protect what is left. Adjusters are waiting on structural engineers to evaluate for structural damage before releasing any payments to those insured," he says.

As for Liston, he said it's still hard to get into the area where the worst damage occurred.

"We did, however, have a chance to board up one of the houses on the corner of Zone 2 and Zone 3 [Zone 3 being the most-damaged area]," he says. "Technically it was Zone 3, but the state patrol officer let us walk to the house. After all, it was just across the street from Zone 2. The officer had 40 years on the state police force. He had never seen anything like this. He told us that many of the men who were helping had been to war and they had never seen devastation such as this."

Liston spotted quite a few cars with broken windshields.

"They were being towed on wreckers," he says. "There was much more damage to them than just windshields. When we got to the house we were boarding up, we saw the car in the garage-under the garage door. The force of the blast blew the entire garage door in on top of the car."

Liston also says he met a downtown Main Street business owner. The night of the blast, she drove around on the rims for 30 minutes to find her missing son, as her tires had been blown out. She finally found him under a pile of debris, Liston says.

"He was bruised but not really hurt. His dad also survived," he says. "She is a strong businesswoman and is using her business as a center of food, hugs, tears and prayers on downtown on Main Street."

The business owner's neighbor was apparently blinded by flying glass shards at the time of the blast.

"Her neighbor's young granddaughter was blinded in just one of her eyes," Liston adds. "Another neighbor lost half of her foot in the blast."

As for repair and cleanup, Liston says there are restoration companies and contractors "swarming" the area.
"At Glass Doctor, we are on-site every day. We took a new van and put it into immediate service loaded with everything we need to do board-ups," he says.

Dwyer Group delivered pallets of wood for Glass Doctor and Rainbow Restoration, as well as the community in general, to help with boarding up buildings. Dwyer Group is the parent company for Glass Doctor and Rainbow Restoration.

"I don't know what tomorrow will bring or what will happen when we can actually get into Zone 3," he says. "I can't imagine it will be any worse than what I've seen the past two days. The police officer we talked to, however, said it gets much worse."

This story is an original story by AGRR™ magazine/glassBYTEs.com™. Subscribe to AGRR™ Magazine.
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