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Texas A&M University freshman Heather Warfield collects baseball cards Saturday, May 4, 2013, from a nearby apartment complex in West, Texas, that was damaged due to the explosion at a fertilizer plant in West on April 17. More than 124 students donated their time to help cleanup parts of West devastated by the fertilizer plant explosion. The plant exploded during a fire, killing at least 14 people and injuring about 200.






On April 17, a fire at the West Fertilizer Co. in West, a town 70 miles south of Dallas, was quickly followed by an earth-shaking explosion that left a 90-foot wide crater and damaged homes, schools and nursing home within a 37-block blast zone. Among those killed were 10 emergency responders.

State and federal investigators haven't determined what caused the blast.


Roberts said that even without a conclusive cause, negligence lawsuits can proceed.

"The law allows courts to presume negligence when something happens that would not ordinarily occur but for negligence," Roberts said. "A fire might be an unavoidable accident, but an explosion of this magnitude resulting from a fire is not an unavoidable accident."
