A huge explosion tore through a British Petroleum oil refinery in Texas City Wednesday morning, killing at least 15 people and injuring over 100. Here is the exhaustive Chronicle coverage on the blast.
Texas City is a city of 40,000 located on Galveston Bay about 30 miles south of Houston just north of Galveston Island. My 15 year old daughter was on the beach on Galveston with friends when the blast occurred yesterday morning, and she and her friends said that the blast sounded like a thunderclap directly overhead when it occurred. They spent the rest of the morning watching the billowing smoke from the blast cover the sky north of Galveston.
The British Petroleum refinery that blew is one of many in Texas City, which is one of several cities south and east of Houston that contain some of the largest refineries and petrochemical plants in the nation. This particular plant is the third largest in the U.S., sprawling across 1,200 acres. It processes almost 450,000 barrels of crude oil daily and employs almost 2,000 people.
Within minutes of the explosion, Texas City officials issued the “shelter-in-place” warning to Texas City residents, which requires residents to stay inside until authorities could be certain the air was safe. These procedures are commonplace in Texas City, which has endured some of the most remarkable explosions in American history.
Although the 1900 Galveston Hurricane is the worst disaster that the Houston-Galveston area has endured in modern history, the disaster resulting from the Texas City industrial explosions over a two day period in April 1947 is not far behind. During those perilous two days, a fire aboard a ship at the Texas City docks triggered a series of massive explosions in several Texas City plants that killed 576 people and left fires burning in the city for days. In fact, huge explosions are really just a part of life in Texas City. As one former Texas City resident observed to me several years ago after a relatively small blast killed a couple of workers at another plant:

“That one won’t even make the Top Ten list of Texas City explosions.”

Unfortunately, the BP plant explosion of yesterday will.

Anne Linehan over at blogHouston.net alerts us to this University of Houston announcement that Donald J. Foss has been named the University’s new Provost.
Dr. Foss has been the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida State University for the past 10 years and, for 12 years before that, he was Dhairman of the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. He replaces former UH Optometry Dean Jerald Strickland, who has filled the Provost position on an interim basis since September 2003.
By all accounts, Dean Strickland has done a marvelous job of patching up the relationship between the UH Faculty and Administration that had deteriorated badly during the tenure of former UH Provost Edward Sheridan. That bitter relationship is the subject of this April 2002 Tim Fleck Houston Press article.
Dr. Foss’ appointment is subject to approval by the UH Board of Regents at its April 6 meeting, and he is expected to assume the Provost position in July.

Kevin Whited over at blogHouston.net has this interesting post regarding rumors that KTRK undercover reporter Wayne Dolcefino is pursuing a sensitive story regarding the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and its finances.
It sounds as if Dolcefino’s story revolves around speculation regarding the Rodeo that I have heard in Houston’s business community for years. The gist of the speculation is that the Rodeo’s enormous revenues are out of whack with the amount of charitable contributions that the Rodeo actually makes. If this is in fact the subject of Dolcefino’s story, stay tuned. It could be interesting.
Update: The Chron is now running with the story.

Bob Gray, longtime Fulbright & Jaworski corporate securities partner and the head of that firm’s technology practice, has moved to the Houston office of Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, LLP.
Bob is one of Houston’s most well-regarded lawyers in the corporate securities area and is also involved in many civic causes. He is currently chairman of the advisory boards of directors of the Houston Technology Center and BioHouston, and is a member of the University of Houston C.T. Bauer College of Business Dean’s Advisory Board.

This Chronicle article reports on the imminent closing of the Palace Boot Shop, which is a downtown Houston institution. The nearby Christ Church Cathedral has acquired the downtown city block where the shop is located, and brother-owners Lakis and Steve Xydis have decided to take a break for a year or two before deciding whether to reopen the shop in another location. Any suggestions on where I should buy my boots in the meantime?
Meanwhile, a couple of blocks down the street from the boot shop, this Chronicle article reports that Reece Rondon was sworn in this week as replace Bruce Oakley as judge of the 234th Harris County State District Court. Mr. Oakley stepped down earlier this year to return to private practice.
Judge Rondon was first appointed to the 334th District Court in October 2003, but he lost a close race in the 2004 Republican primary to Sharon McCally by 307 votes. Judge McCally went on to win the seat in the November election. Between stints on the bench, Judge Rondon returned to private practice at Andrews Kurth, where he had practiced before taking the bench. His new term in office will run until 2006, when he intends to run for a full term.

Following on this earlier report of the increasingly dangerous situation that exists along the Texas-Mexico border, the federal government has issued a warning to students going to the Spring Break hotspots of South Texas regarding the dangers lurking in the border towns.
Parents of college students going to South Texas over Spring Break need to emphasize to their children that this is a real danger and not one to take lightly. Although security on the Texas side of the border is fine, security is simply not adequate these days in the Mexican border towns, and the smart move for young people is simply to stay out of those towns. There is plenty to do on the Texas side of the border, anyway.

Read about this great Houston tradition here. This year’s calendar of entertainer performances is here.

On Saturday morning (February 19), the Houston Bar Association’s annual Law & the Media Seminar, co-sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists and The Press Club, will take place on the sixth floor of the South Texas College of Law, 1303 San Jacinto in downtown Houston.
The topic for this year’s program is “Maintaining the Independence of the Media,” and the featured speaker is John Seigenthaler, who founded the First Amendment Center in 1991 with the mission of creating national dialogue about First Amendment rights and values. Mr. Seigenthaler served for 43 years as an award-winning journalist for The Tennessean, Nashville’s morning newspaper and was the founding editorial director of USA TODAY in 1982. During the early 1960’s, Mr. Seigenthaler served in the U.S. Justice Department as administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, which led to his service as chief negotiator with the governor of Alabama during the Freedom Rides.
There will also be a couple of panel discussions, which will include local journalists and attorneys. The first panel discussion will be on “Threats to the Independence of the Media” and will include four noted local journalists, Robert Arnold of KPRC, Tim Fleck of the Houston Chronicle, UH Journalism Professor Garth Jowett, and Mimi Schwartz of Texas Monthly magazine. I will be on the second panel along with local attorney Chip Babcock, Carlos Puig of Rumbo de Houston, and Olive Talley of Dateline NBC that will be discussing “Tools for Maintaining Independence of the Media.”
Come on out on Saturday morning and enjoy the lively discussion of issues affecting the media and journalism. Members of the media, communications professionals and journalism and law students attend at no charge. Attorneys pay $40 for the program, which is approved for three hours of MCLE, including one hour of ethics.