had burned to the ground, leaving only a brick chimney that towered above the blackened rubble. He presumed a burning chunk of the plant had hit his home. His family hadn’t been there; they saw their house burning on television the night of the blast.
Smith and Kaska talked as people drove by snapping photos. Finally, bristling at all the rubberneckers, Kaska’s mood shifted. “On the Monday afterward, I was counting cars; I counted to one hundred and just stopped,” he said. “I see people with video cameras—why?” No sooner had he finished his sentence than another car drove up with passengers taking pictures. Kaska looked at his scorched home, gritted his teeth, and muttered, “Smile for the camera.”
Nobody will ever know for certain what caused the fire at the fertilizer plant. Although the state fire marshal’s office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives have winnowed the possible causes down to three—an electrical malfunction in the main building, an electrical malfunction in a golf cart used at the plant, or arson—the case will likely go unsolved. There simply isn’t enough left of the plant to study, and a giant hole offers few specific clues. For a brief time, officials showed interest in 31-year-old Bryce Reed, a West paramedic who was arrested for possessing the components of a pipe bomb. But investigators couldn’t connect him to the explosion, and while Reed awaited trial, most locals relegated “causes” to the same mental file as “regrets,” considering both to be an unfruitful line of thinking that prevented them from moving forward.
Even after a few locals who’d been blinded or burned eventually filed lawsuits—as did some insurance carriers that underwrote multiple damaged properties—the general feeling among the residents of West toward the plant’s owner, 83-year-old Donald Adair, was overwhelmingly supportive. The company’s $1 million in liability insurance wouldn’t go very far, and in retrospect, the safeguards at the plant should have been better, no question. But Adair, who had bought the plant in 2004, was still one of them. “They’re community people,” said Kirk Wines. Adair had been raised just north of town, in Abbott, and his wife, Wanda, was a columnist for the weekly West News, writing about her cows, her children, and the weather. The Adairs’ friends told the Dallas Morning News that when the couple had heard about the fire at the plant, they’d tried to rush to the site but had been stopped by a police barricade. “You’ve got to get those firemen out of there,” Donald had told an officer. No one heard much from him or Wanda after the explosion, but few doubted how deeply they cared.
Meanwhile, talk around town turned to the future. West had incurred $17,775,175 in city infrastructure damages, including the loss of three schools, $800,000 in sewer damage, and $3 million in water pipe damage. Due in part to the loss of money that usually came from selling the city’s water, the town’s tax revenue plummeted. In June the city council decided to file suit against Adair Grain and the company that supplied the plant with ammonium nitrate, CF Industries. Two months later, after initially denying government aid to the city of West, the Federal Emergency Management Agency offered funds to help with the rebuilding process. Mayor Muska was relieved. “I don’t want my people moving away to Waco,” he said later. “There are a lot of houses in Central Texas that they can move into right now and say, ‘Have a nice day, West.’ And they won’t come back. So that’s my concern.”
Tommy Muska (left) and Stevie Vanek in front of a new home being built near the blast site. Portrait by Sarah Wilson.
With so much to oversee, the city council helped establish a long-term recovery center that would apply donated funds to residents’ needs. The only available office space the council could offer was the 1890 Best Theatre building, which had no restrooms or windows, but the center’s interim executive director, West real estate agent Karen Bernsen, wasn’t one to complain. On the first day in the theater, she and a handful of volunteers sat at a long plastic table covered with pens, Styrofoam cups, notepads, and laptops while a group of men began the task of converting the dark, cavernous space into a workplace by pulling a clunky old air conditioner out of the wall. “We’re thinking we’ll be here three to five years,” Bernsen said, looking up from her laptop.
She didn’t waste time. When a worker stopped by and said, “Last chance for email. Last name, first initial?” she looked up from her work for a moment, replied, “Right,” and went back to her computer as the man marched off. Her assistant, Susanne Nemmer, interrupted to ask, “Nine to six, Monday through Friday?”
“Eight-thirty to five, Monday through Friday. I have kids. Oh, and include the website: westltr.org.”
A man wandered in amid the diligent army, biting his lip, having seen a makeshift sign out front. The needs of the townspeople were mounting as insurance adjusters called to tell them what money they’d be receiving and what they’d need to pay on their own. “How long do you think it’ll be before you’ll be open?” the man asked Bernsen.
“Now,” Bernsen replied. “We’re open now.”
“The way people react tells the whole story about who they are,” said Joe Pustejovsky, six weeks after his son died. Pustejovsky’s home, three hundred yards from the blast, had been destroyed. His wife, Carolyn, and his son’s wife, Kelly, each wore a necklace adorned with a pendant holding an image of Joey. But other than to honor Joey’s memory, the family didn’t want to dwell on the horrifying events. “I never had any questions I wanted to ask about the past,” said Joe. Any thoughts about why the tragedy had happened were eclipsed by his faith in God and his community. “Everything is just really strong here,” he said. “That’s why we’re so resilient.