Explosion in West, TX

So, I know this was a few days ago now, but there were other things occupying my mind.  Like getting my character in world of warcraft up to level 85 finally.  My first level 85.  But back to Texas.  So many more people died and were injured here than in Boston.  Yet it certainly didn't have the same emotional pull for many people.  But even for a plant explosion, it seems to me like this explosion hurt a lot more people than usual.  Why would you put a nursing home next to a fertilizer plant?  Even if it never explodes, don't the fumes leak out sometimes?  I would think they must.

In addition to the people who were killed or injured (some of whom are still missing), so many homes and buildings were destroyed.  It really looks like a war zone.  Here's a link to a good story and a lot of pictures.

Sometimes I feel like we get a little jaded about industrial accidents where people get killed or injured, because they seem to happen with a certain regularity.  There were 8 agencies that had some oversight of this fertilizer plant, but no one had inspected it completely for like 20+ years?  And even when it was inspected, no one said it had any serious issues.  People always say there are too many regulations in this country that are suffocating business, but when I look around me, that's not what I see.  I see banks who acted irresponsibly, that are not only too big to fail (ie, we have to bail them out), but now are too big to jail for breaking laws (there are cases of clear fraud, at the very least, that would land you or me in federal prison for a long time).  I see BP and Exxon destroying the environment, and not being fined enough to cover the costs of cleanup (and dealing with human health impacts which may appear later) or enough to deter them from unsafe practices in the future.  I see industrial farming allowed to pollute the water and air around them without being subject to the same environmental laws as any other industry.  If our laws are confusing and overly complicated, they seem to also be ineffective.  How to fix?  That's always the tough question.  But I think a good place to start is to enforce (with serious consequences) walls between regulators and the industries they regulate.  There is a lot of corruption out there, and it's killing us.