"“The chickens have come home to roost,” one resident said. “Our exact fears have come true.”"
"John Beard takes no pleasure in being right.
In January, he told Capital B that he feared U.S. military action in Venezuela, which ultimately gave America preferential access to the South American nation’s vast oil reserves, would lead to disaster in southeast Texas.
“The chickens have come home to roost,” Beard said over the phone, between fielding calls from his neighbors. “Our exact fears have come true.”
On March 23, an explosion at the Valero Port Arthur Refinery shook homes as far as 11 miles away and sent a thick black plume across the predominantly Black city.
Days later, people in Port Arthur were still trying to figure out how to address hairline cracks zigzagging across their windows and rooms still coated in the faint smell of burnt chemicals long after the fireball faded from the sky. Parents kept their kids indoors, and local schools were closed the day after the explosion out of precaution."
