re: #9 erik_t

Many of them undoubtedly had no clue as to the danger across the road, because any reasonable citizen would conclude their due-diligence phase by assuming the local authorities would not allow houses to be built three hundred feet from an explosives manufacturer.

Invisible hand free market something something.

I doubt it rose to that. Most thought “Hey, this means I can be home within minutes and not spend a lot of money on gas. And better, if I want to, I can just walk or ride a bike to work!”

Won’t surprise me in the least when the lawsuits start trickling in and the response from corporate is “It’s not our fault these fools built so close to our plant!”