Re: About 18,000 Democrats Are Killed in Fire at Dairy Farm in Texas

[Hannes Heer]

"Trump's Omicron Hoax" <trum...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:spipu1$59h$1...@news.dns-netz.com:

> ed...@post.com wrote
>
>> And you wonder why everybody thinks Democrats are fucking stupid.

One employee was left in “critical condition” after an explosion and blaze
in Dimmitt, Texas, officials said. A thick plume of smoke mushroomed over
the plains.

The 911 calls came in rapid succession, with reports of an explosion and
fire on Monday that officials would later say had trapped one female
employee and thousands of cattle inside a milking parlor at a dairy farm
in Dimmitt, Texas.

As emergency responders approached after 7 p.m., they witnessed the thick
plume of smoke, mushrooming over the plains. The worker, whose name the
authorities have not released, was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in
Lubbock, Texas, where she was still being treated as of Thursday,
officials said.

“While devastating, I’m grateful that there were no further injuries,” Sid
Miller, the Texas agricultural commissioner, said in a statement.

As for the cattle, he noted, around 18,000 had died. “This was the
deadliest barn fire for cattle in Texas history,” Mr. Miller added. “The
investigation and cleanup may take some time.”

The episode appears to be the largest mass death of cattle in a single
fire, not only in Texas, but also across the United States, in at least
two decades, according to data from the Animal Welfare Institute, a
nonprofit that has been tracking barn fires since 2013.

During that period, more than six million animals have been killed in barn
fires — which the organization says are often caused by electrical
malfunctions — but less than 1 percent of the animal casualties have been
cattle.

Cattle have died en masse in other circumstances, however. In 2016, a
blizzard killed more than 35,000 dairy cows in Texas. The following year,
some cattle farmers in California lost their herds and livelihoods in
devastating wildfires.

Officials said the cause of Monday’s explosion and fire at the South Fork
Dairy Farm in Dimmitt, a city of around 4,000 people southwest of
Amarillo, Texas, remained under investigation by the state fire marshal.

The fire marshal’s office did not immediately respond to requests for
further information on Thursday evening. Local officials, including the
mayor of Dimmitt and the Castro County judge, also could not be
immediately reached.

When reached by phone on Thursday evening, Frank Brand, who is listed as
the farm’s operator, said that he could not comment.

The Texas Association of Dairymen, an industry group that advocates for
dairy farmers, said in a statement that it was “deeply saddened for the
family dairy, and everyone affected by the tragedy,” adding that those
involved had shown resolve and courage. Castro County produces just under
5 percent of the state’s milk, according to the organization.

Community members in the agricultural region were shocked by the
destruction caused by the fire and had banded together to deliver lunch
and dinner to the affected farmers, dairy industry workers said.

<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/us/dairy-farm-fire-explosion-texas-
cows.html>