WACO, Texas – President Barack Obama consoled a rural Texas community rocked by a deadly fertilizer plant explosion, telling mourners Thursday they are not alone in their grief and they will have America’s support to rebuild from the devastation.
“This small town’s family is bigger now,” Obama said during a memorial service at Baylor University for victims of last week’s explosion in nearby West, Texas, that killed 14 and injured 200. Nearly 10,000 gathered to remember the first responders killed in the blast, a crowd more than triple the size of West’s entire population of 2,700.
“To the families, the neighbours grappling with unbearable loss, we are here to say you are not alone. You are not forgotten,” Obama said to applause. “We may not all live here in Texas, but we’re neighbours too. We’re Americans too, and we stand with you.”
The April 17 explosion left a crater more than 90 feet (27 metres) wide and damaged dozens of buildings, displacing many residents from their homes. The Insurance Council of Texas estimates it caused more than $100 million in damage, and crews were sifting the rubble to search for clues to what caused the explosion or whether foul play was involved.
The blast came about 20 minutes after a fire was reported at West Fertilizer. Ten of those killed were first responders who sped out to the nighttime blaze.
The memorial service honoured those first responders and two civilians who tried to fight the fire and were posthumously named volunteer first responders.
Obama spoke for 16 minutes, quoting scripture and lauding the men whose flag-draped coffins laid before him. “When you got to the scene, you forgot fear and you fought that blaze as hard as you could, knowing the danger,” Obama said.
Both the president and first lady Michelle Obama wiped away a tear as bagpipes sounded “Amazing Grace.”
Obama added his appearance at the memorial service onto a long-planned trip to Texas for Thursday’s opening of George W. Bush’s presidential library at Southern Methodist University. Bush sent his sympathies in a statement read at the service by Baylor President Ken Starr, the former special prosecutor who investigated President Bill Clinton.
From his helicopter, Obama saw what looked like a massive construction site, with cranes and dozens of vehicles dotting a wide swath of brown earth. Piles of burnt rubble and scorched earth were clearly visible. Obama could also see the school field first responders used as a staging ground.
Obama has made such a trip countless times before, touring damage and consoling survivors of other disasters including Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy and a string of mass shootings. It was just one week ago that Obama was in Boston, offering solace to America at a memorial for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, another larger-than-life tragedy that compounded the nation’s grief the same week as the explosion in West.
After the service, the president and first lady were planning to visit privately with relatives and friends of firefighters killed in the explosion, the White House said.
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