As more facts have come out, it’s apparent my guesstimate of 20 times the size of the Oklahoma City bomb was too small.

The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate – which can also be used in bomb making – unaware of any danger there.

I wonder if there was anyone on the premises or at corporate HQ who thought that might be a dangerous situation, or was it all just “business as usual” and sweetness and light till the plant blew up.

Texas. Where regulations and business torts go to die.