Exactly a week ago I learned a roller coaster in Texas from which a woman fell to her death would not be permitted to take another passenger until the Texas Department of Insurance slapped a new sticker on it.

TDI is the state administrator of the Amusement Ride Safety Inspection and Insurance Act. Every amusement park ride owner or operator must possess at least $1 million in bodily injury insurance (per occurrence) and the ride has to be inspected by a qualified engineer—every year. The sticker, similar to an inspection stick on a car, is meant to be seen by riders in order to assure them the ride is safe.

Rhetorically I ask: So you mean to tell me TDI has more oversight of roller coasters than it does a facility—within spitting distance of schools and homes—that stores hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate?

Roller coasters are required to have insurance or no one is permitted to ride. Want to know what else is in that Amusement Ride Safety Act? Go-karts, rock-climbing walls, bungee jumps, zip lines, mechanical bulls and inflatables. Yes. Operators of bouncy houses are required to possess insurance in case there is an accident.

Following the explosion of West Fertilizer Co. in West, Texas (which destroyed 140-something homes, an apartment complex, a couple schools and a nursing home) it was a lot more difficult to find a state agency who knew anything about topics such as inspections or insurance for a fertilizer facility storing volatile chemical compounds extremely close to where residents lay their heads for the night or to where children enjoy recess.

TDI said after the April blast: four state agencies—State Health Services, Texas State Chemist, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and Texas Agriculture Department—with some oversight of these types of facilities do not require General Liability. “Companies that carry insurance are not required to report that information to us,” TDI said in a statement.

As we all now know, West Fertilizer had $1 million in insurance coverage. No excess or umbrella cover. And partly due to this fact, the city of West is having a difficult time recovering because some folks affected cannot be made whole. The city has sued the fertilizer manufacturer because there is nowhere else to turn. Some residents have followed the lead, similarly filing lawsuits against the manufacturer. I went to West and spoke to its mayor, Tommy Muska, and I can guarantee he didn't want to sue anyone. But there were no other options.

Read my story based on my visit to West HERE.

Luckily the town got some good news. According to reports, the city's schools will receive $2.75 million for temporary classrooms and administrative buildings from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency rejected a request for $40 million in aid for the city, struggling to find funds to repair the schools and infrastructure.

Another report from the Dallas Morning News says the state Department of Health Services can't even say how many people were hurt in the explosion because it hasn't started to collect information about deaths (there were officially 15 directly as a result of the blast) and injuries. Sources cited by the newspaper say this type of information could shed light on the danger hovering over other Texans living close to facilities like West Fertilizer—and it could be beneficial to understand how a blast like this effects people. Since the disaster, about a dozen senior citizens moved from West's nursing home have died.

In other words: Wouldn't it be wise to learn from this unfortunate accident—establish some risk management strategies, maybe—rather than let the opportunity slip by? And wouldn't it be sensible to look into whether these facilities need to carry a certain amount of insurance?

You know…like the state has done with bouncy houses.

Special Reports /

Texas Insurance: Law for Roller Coasters, Not Fertilizer Plants

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