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 that they will have the nation’s support to rebuild from the devastation.
“This small town’s family is bigger now,” Obama said at a memorial service at Baylor University for victims of last week’s explosion in the nearby town of West that killed 14 and injured 200 others. Nearly 10,000 people — a crowd more than triple the size of West’s population of 2,700 — gathered to remember the first responders killed in the blast.
“To the families, the neighbors grappling with unbearable loss, we are here to say you are not alone. You are not forgotten,” said Obama, who later took a helicopter tour of the blast site .
The April 17 explosion left a crater more than 90 feet wide and damaged dozens of buildings, displacing many residents. The Insurance Council of Texas estimates it caused more than $100 million in damage. Crews were sifting the rubble to search for clues to what caused the explosion or whether foul play was involved.
