Man Sought for Photographing Texas City Refineries
Texas City is about 10 miles south of Seabrook, and it's not your basic vacation paradise. It's perhaps best known for being the site of this country's worst industrial disaster (a French ship loaded with ammonium nitrate caught fire and exploded on April 16, 1947, killing 600 people in a town of 16,000). It's also a very heavily industrialized area, with several large refineries and chemical plants dotting the landscape. What there is worth wasting film on in Texas City is anyone's guess.
Prior to 9.11, no one would have thought twice about someone taking pictures of a refinery in Texas City. Now, with fear, suspicion, and paranoia at near-record levels, every misguided tourist with a camera is a suspected terrorist advance man.
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement officials said on Monday they are looking for a man seen taking pictures of two refineries in Texas City, Texas.
Texas City, located on the Texas Gulf coast about 30 miles south of Houston, has three refineries including the largest U.S. plant operated by BP Plc., which is the third-largest U.S. refinery, processing 470,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
The man, described as white with dark hair, was seen taking pictures outside the refineries, all located on the same highway, at about 5 p.m. CDT on Saturday, said Bruce Clawson, emergency management and homeland security director for Texas City.
While it is not illegal to take pictures of a refinery from a highway or street, officials would like to talk to the man to find out his reason for taking the photographs.
"This is based on the idea that al Qaeda does its homework," Clawson said. "That's not to say we don't have enough home-grown idiots already who might want to do something."....
Valero Energy Corp. operates a 243,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Texas City. Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC, a joint venture between Marathon Oil Corp., and Ashland Inc., operates a 76,000 bpd refinery in Texas City.
Of course, one cannot discount the possibility of terrorism, and it is entirely possible that this unnamed person of interest may be doing his homework for nefarious purposes. Still, must we assume the worst every time something like this happens? Is this really how we want to live? Does every idiot with an unexplained penchant for chemical plants have to be headline news? Isn't it about time we all got a grip on reality??
