At Least 18,000 Diary Cows Killed in Texas Panhandle Explosion

[Okie4570]

So your telling me that the local fire marshal, the Dept of AG, OSHA, and half-a-dozen other people or agencies ALL failed to ensure that monitoring equipment was installed and working properly to alert to the presence of an overabundance of methane?
That no one was responsible for equipment maintenance (overheated bearing{?})?
That, for some reason, all of this was kept under wraps from going National news for several days (evidence clean-up maybe)?

Seems to me to be a lot of LARGE . . . ah, 'incidents' happening lately; certainly more than typical, all seemingly 'designed' to increase the cost of food for the working poor in our country and to increase or cripple major transportation links (think derailments, rise in diesel cost for trucking, and container-ship ports backlogs).

Same thing happened at Three Mile Island iirc, only this time someone failed to monitor the cow farts.

 

[dennishoddy]

That is interesting, I'm impressed. But why didn't OSHA catch that?

OSHA typically comes in after the fact of an accident, unless the company requests an inspection or OSHA receives a complaint.

 

[OkieJoe72]

That is interesting, I'm impressed. But why didn't OSHA catch that?

OSHA doesn’t typically inspect facilities unless there is a complaint or a fatality. About 20 years ago, I did a lot of work for Shawnee Mills. The only time that OSHA showed up was when a maintenance guy was killed while working under a piece of equipment and the hydraulics failed. Like mentioned in an earlier post, agricultural dust is an extreme fire and explosion hazard. There have been numerous explosions throughout the years in elevators and mills. The equipment in the head house at Shawnee Mills had been around since the early 1900’s when I was there. It was my opinion that it would be only a matter of time before something catastrophic happens there. The dust was everywhere, and it only takes a spark to set off a chain reaction.

 

[Two Gun Warrior]

https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-da...t-18000-cattle-dead-person-critically-injured

Is methan gas that explosive?

 

[OkieJoe72]

Is methan gas that explosive?

Yes, when it is in an enclosed environment.

 

[SoonerP226]

Is methan gas that explosive?

Methane is the main component of natural gas. Do an image search for "natural gas explosion house" and you'll see for yourself how explosive it can be. Some of those houses look like confetti...

 

[Two Gun Warrior]

There is probably few calves on that farm, they get rid of them pretty quick. The cows in that size dairy are on rotation system in and out of the milking barn. The milking is done around the clock, each cow goes in every 12 hour for their turn. The worker work shifts like a factory. If a cow is hard to handle or does not give enough milk she is sold. They do not have time for any problems.

 

[Snattlerake]

That is a large barn.

Article said speculation is the manure vacuum overheated and somehow ignited the methane. I always wanted to run a manure vacuum, but I think now I'll pass on it.

Read my signature line.

 

[Shadowrider]

I’ve survived a half dozen OSHA inspections over the years as well as multitudes of fire marshal walk throughs.
The only thing they looked at is hand tools, cleanliness and machine guarding.
Not a single one of them had a clue what they were looking at if they ever opened up a disconnect or electrical panel which none of them ever did.
They were totally clueless when looking at PLC’s and CNC control systems, plus, I’m betting the family farm that they have no clue how air handling and waste gas systems operate, much less the safeties involved in preventing accidents.
In most industrial environments, it’s the maintenance crews that spot the deficiencies and bring them up to safety standards. That is of course if management will spend the money.
It’s always cheaper to prevent a disaster than to mop up after one and greet the families that died or were injured, but some bean counters don’t understand that concept.
Fought those battles my entire career.

Ditto here.

They didn't bat an eye at a hollow spindle oil country lathe having 15 feet of heavy pipe hanging out the back of the rear chuck spinning at 700 or 800 RPM that ANY fool could walk into and go for a very wild ride and have a really bad day. But they were downright OCD about the covers on the drive belts which weren't very accessible at all being latched and secured. Didn't bat an eye or ask about lockout procedures during maintenance either. A lot of our equipment had Siemens 87kw drive motors on it and EVERYTHING was 440 or 480V (I forget which) 3 phase. Didn't give one chit...

I'm kinda glad they were inept though because I really didn't care for them making my job any harder, which they could have done in a drunken stupor. Today we would have to wear hard hats which is just asinine. MY BIL still works in manufacturing and even in QA he has to wear one. It's past ridiculous.

 

[dennishoddy]

Ditto here.

They didn't bat an eye at a hollow spindle oil country lathe having 15 feet of heavy pipe hanging out the back of the rear chuck spinning at 700 or 800 RPM that ANY fool could walk into and go for a very wild ride and have a really bad day. But they were downright OCD about the covers on the drive belts which weren't very accessible at all being latched and secured. Didn't bat an eye or ask about lockout procedures during maintenance either. A lot of our equipment had Siemens 87kw drive motors on it and EVERYTHING was 440 or 480V (I forget which) 3 phase. Didn't give one chit...

I'm kinda glad they were inept though because I really didn't care for them making my job any harder, which they could have done in a drunken stupor. Today we would have to wear hard hats which is just asinine. MY BIL still works in manufacturing and even in QA he has to wear one. It's past ridiculous.

Two of the OSHA inspections we went through at Smith Tool was upon request by the company as they were trying to achieve, I think it was blue star status where OSHA would not do an unannounced inspection for something like 10 years. We had just completed a 250,000 sq' building and had an electrical company out of Wichita do a complete electrical upgrade so they company felt they had a shot at getting the reward.
The inspector was a graduate safety engineer out of OSU that was contracted to do the inspection.
First place he went was the tool room to inspect hand tools, got gigged for not having the tool rests within 1/8" of the stone on some pedestal grinders and gigged us on not having containment around the new and waste oil drums. Never looked at anything electrical nor any safeties on some of the machine tools that had been wired off for years that would allow doors to be opened for chip removal while the machines was running and so on.
I could go on for hours on things they missed.
The inspector on the second inspection after 2 weeks found everything he had found to be corrected so the company got the exemption. He looked no further on the second inspection.