So I get outta the bed this morning. Mainly because 2 Siamese cats were howling at decibels I couldn’t ignore. I stumble down the hall and down the stairs. You know there is nothing quite as gross smelling as kitty pate’ first thing in the morning. Yummy! Cats are munching. I put the electric kettle on. I turn around to get the coffee out of the cupboard. And ‘BOOM’, not a little boom, a huge ‘BOOM’. Electricity goes off. Cats are flying through the air. To the highest beam in the living room.(their usual spot in emergencies)
The log house shook, glass rattled. I really thought the end was nigh. Jesus H. Christ. Yea, really. I wish I was a faithful church member. I’m going straight to hell, I just know it.
But no. Not today, anyway. A tanker truck carrying fertilizer caught on fire and exploded. The explosion was 12 miles from my house. The boom was heard in Little Rock. Amazing. It left a crater 12-18 feet deep. Of course it’s the main drag I drive.
My electric came back alittle while ago. The cats finally came outta the beams. I’m not sure they’ll ever trust me to open a can of kitty pate’ again. I knew that crap was dangerous.
I’m guessing things didn’t go well for the trucker…
Unfortunately the driver was killed.
The truck was carrying ammonium nitrate the same stuff which exploded in the West, Texas elevator explosion which killed 15 people:
No. He was killed.
Thanks for the links.
Ammonium nitrate can just explode like that? I thought it had to be mixed with gasoline or something in order for an explosion to happen?
The truck was diesel and the tires were on fire. Bad luck and bad roads. I feel like he was Jake braking probably trying to avoid deer. Don’t know that for sure, just a WAG.
You have my empathy Beck, I was 12 when a bakery about a 1/2 mile from my house exploded. My family was worried about Dad since he worked about 3 blocks from there at the time.
Um, watch out for “thank you gifts” from the kitties for feeding them exploding prank paté for the next few weeks maybe?
No, it takes some serious heat and pressure to make it explode, but it does.
Yep, little bombs of their own making. I fully expect revenge.
Cats are thinking, “Now it’s exploding cucumbers!”
(Sorry somebody died though. Glad you’re okay, Beck.)
And now we know (to an even finer degree) where you live. 
That is a pretty impressive crater left behind.
Well it ain’t walking distance. You get to the crater and I’ll come get you. Holler real loud.
:eek:
From the photo, this seems like the Mythbusters’ cement truck explosion where the vehicle didn’t get wrecked so much as it just “went away”.
Confirming the death of the driver probably wasn’t a matter of finding the body, it was finding itsy bitsy bits of person, strewn all over…
Grim.
Someone reported his family was on site in the afternoon. And his 2 boys drive for the same company. This may just be rumors. Of course the stories are flying fast and fierce.
Yeah, I would guess that any explosion that can be heard 12 miles away isn’t going to be survivable for anyone in the immediate vicinity.
Yep, this is like Taken 2 where Liam Neeson triangulates his position via grenades.
Oh it was heard further than 12 miles. Maybe up to 75miles away. According to the statewide news. I was 12 miles away, how the crow flies. It broke windows out of the few houses in the immediate area. A firetruck may be totalled. The fire-chiefs truck was 1/2 mile away and all glass was broken and all airbags deployed. It literally made me stumble and my ears felt weird.
It’s a miracle no one else on scene was killed. Many 1st responders were there. For some reason the driver went back to the truck and then it exploded.
This is a kind of sad thread, and deserves the appropriate respect for a tragedy.
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But I can’t resist asking: what other emergencies occur often enough in your house, such that there exists a usual spot to which the cats are prepared in advance to fly?
Surely you’ve got some more stories to tell us, Beck. 
It’s like The Wages of Fear. Where’d the truck go?