McEWEN, Tenn. (AP) — The blast in rural Tennessee that leveled an explosives plant and was felt for miles around left no survivors, authorities said Saturday.
The total number of dead was unclear, as was the cause of the Friday blast. By the weekend, the devastation came into focus, with officials saying they had found no survivors. A total of 16 people were missing, officials said.
“There’s a gauntlet of emotions there,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said during a news conference, pausing to clear his throat before he asked for prayers for the families of the victims in a shaky voice.
“We’ve recovered no survivors,” he added.
“There’s a lot of people hurting. A lot of people who are crying a lot of tears,” he said. “We are sad that our community is going through this, but it’s a tremendous opportunity for the church to minister to a lot of those people today.”
That’s such a sick statement to make. Truly disgusting.
Cults feed on shit like this. Desperate and distraught people are their favourite victims, except for children of course.
I’m not religious but I don’t see the problem with pointing out that the church can offer a lot of support to people after something like this.
He said “ minister “ not support. Seeing a tragedy as an opportunity to minister aka get more people into your church aka MORE MONEY for yourself, is far from supporting people who need it. It’s predatory and disgusting. I grew up knee deep in that shit and hated every second of it.
“never let a crisis go to waste” - Winston Churchill
Maybe we just have a different understanding of what ministering means. I’ve not spent much time in church though so I’ll shut up.
Fuck anyone for trying to comfort another person if their worldview doesn’t match mine. Right, buddy?
It’s not about matching worldviews. It’s about the statement essentially being “yeah it sucks for these people, but it’ll be great for the church.” At best, it’s tone-deaf. At worst, it’s downright sociopathic. Comforting someone else shouldn’t ever be about how it can benefit you.
First of all, opportunities are positive events, not things that one dreads. Calling the death of 16 people an opportunity to advance the goals of your church is sick.
Second, fuck religion. I don’t hate people who are duped into them. I hate the people doing the duping. I don’t care about Joe Schmoe who goes to church on Sunday, but I hate the priest who touches children and rants to his congregation about sin and going to Hell.
First of all, opportunities are positive events, not things that one dreads.
Is English your first language? People often use the word opportunity to find purpose in hardship, reframing adversity as something that might lead to growth.
I hate the priest who touches children and rants to his congregation about sin and going to Hell.
Wow, what a hot take. Someone give this guy more updoots for taking such a brave stance.
Is English your first language? You just completely supported their argument with your explanation of how “opportunity” is used lol
The reason moody has issue is probably due to how predatory it is from an outside perspective, sure from within it’s helping the community and bringing folks to Jeebus or whatever. But from without it just comes across as scummy and predatory, it’s basically the same thing cults do capture folks while they’re at their lowest.
Theres a church near me that does a hot meals thing with an open pantry so folks on hard times can get a hot meal and some food for the week, no strings attached don’t need to attend church or believe in their god or anything. Closest thing to pressure is that the pastor wanders around and just talks to folks, if they want to talk video games he talks video games, anime then anime, Jesus then Jesus. There’s no pressure for anything beyond saying thanks,
Also the pastor lets the local Neo-Hellenic guys use their backyard area for rituals which is fucking awesome. Same with the Wiccan.
Opportunity as a way to reframe a bad situation is a good argument. “Is English your first language” is a very poor argument. Merriam-Webster shows it as positive, Cambridge says between positive and neutral, and Oxford just says neutral. As a native English speaker I feel comfortable saying that the connotation of opportunity is generally positive.
Religion is brain dead buddy, sorry you got into it. If you were a kid, it’s not your fault. You were brainwashed before you could develop critical thinking skills. If you’re an adult, sorry bud you got scammed
Don’t feel sad about downvotes. It’s too bad it happened, but this is a great opportunity to tell you that the Eric the God Eating Penguin exists!
Your comments show that your empathy is underdeveloped.
Comfort isn’t about yourself. When someone is grieving, you don’t do what makes yourself better, you do what makes them feel better.
Calling the loss of lives an ‘opportunity’ is making it about yourself because it describes how this situation benefits your personal religious agenda, not the beliefs of others. Proselytizing to others in their most vulnerable moment because it makes you feel accomplished is making it about yourself, not them.
If comfort were the actual goal, you’d be right. But Christians are lying snakes, sooo…
“But [insert group name] are lying snakes” isn’t a healthy opinion to have. Seek help.
I could clarify that “not all Christians” but see arguments about men being rapists. It’s simply easier and safer to treat all Christians as dangerous.
Turns out it’s totally fine to stereotype entire groups as long as they aren’t women or not white.
We have a word for speaking confidently about something without evidence. That word is “lying”.
Dumb
Considering that our Trump-loving governor let Elon Musk install poisonous gas turbines in my hometown and is letting the National Guard and ICE run rampant, I won’t be surprised if he blames this on “left-wing actors.” Fuck you, Bill Lee. R.I.P to those lost in the blast.
The one thing I know is that they will go about their ‘left wing has been responsible for 200% of all terrorism since 1828 and the only violent actions we took are in self-defence and started literally last Tuesday’ schtick for forever and a day. No amount of refutation or rational argumentation will ever convince them otherwise. A mentally ill pissed off person throwing a sandwich at a guard justifies hit and runs and shoot first, don’t bother with questions going forward (and if it didn’t happen, they would still do it).
I’m sorry if you, or anyone you know, is touched by this. Fuck anyone who contributed to this happening.
I wonder if they knew the place was gonna blow or if it was just lights out in an instant with no warning. Explosives tend to be the latter, for better or worse
A lot of explosions at similar facilities had significant warning, unfortunately. While the detonation itself tends to be instant, they usually have rules about how densely explosives are packed, fire control systems, and systems to maximize the time between problem and disaster.
They probably knew something was wrong and that it was bad, but not how bad.
This same facility had an explosion in 2014 that resulted in death. The fact that they didn’t learn from that and chose to continue to be reckless is sad and infuriating.
They ran the numbers, it’s actually cheaper to replace any equipment that gets damaged or killed.
I used to work in the oil industry, and there are old field logs from the 50s/60s where a whole crew died and the well is manned 2 days later. In the early 2000s we’d spend days on a single death or injury. Once the company paid the overtime because a guy’s wife was in labor and the contractor didn’t want to give him time off. It was addressed as a safety issue, there was no way he could concentrate safely… no issues to pay it. Sad to see the munitions industry caught in the 50s.
That depends on country tbh. And the The strange/sad thing is that I have read the DoD manuals (not American, but the DoD enforces their standars and audits foreign suppliers) and they are pretty stringent.
It’s also bad strategy to have a supply chain that is weak to episodes like this.
So I looked into it, briefly, and it looks like that incident was a different company who rented space in their complex.
That isn’t better for them now, but there’s a difference between negligence and renting to the negligent.
Negligence due to reduced regulation or sabotage? Take your bets, people!
This fucking sucks. :(
RIP
That was obvious. I don’t know why we needed a second headline for that
Yeah, I have my doubts they were making bombs for a good cause…
