and hearing. reporter: we re at a media staging area right off i-35. you mentioned near waco and west. this is a town that s devastated. more than 100 injuries. that s according to the texas department of public safety. other estimates put that number at much more, as we ve been reporting. there are confirmed fatalities. we don t know how many yet. hundreds of emergency personnel responded. the town volunteer firefighters responded to a call at the fertilizer plant. and the town mayor was among those who responded. he was calling to evacuate the area around the plant. the blast followed about 15 minutes later or so. the mayor says five or six volunteer firefighters were at the plant fire when the explosion happened. not all of them have been accounted for. he said. now, a search for survivors has continued throughout the night, as emergency workers have gone hon-to-house. several dozen people were rushed to hospitals in waco.
he s on another call. we don t know. have you searched the hospitals? we ve been to all the hospitals. everybody, you know, there s nobody there from dallas to temple. a long night for you. yes. we re not going to bed until i find him. we wish you well. thank you very much. thank you for joining us. that s louise mills, a resident of the area. her brother s a firefighter, right now, she can t find. richard? charles, very difficult for the residents there in west, texas. as we continue to tell the story, that s the dynamic. it could be much worse, although the search goes on for so many families. and the firefighters. those first responders that louise mills was talking about. it is a good thing that they were on scene 15 minutes before the explosion.
talk about the early evacuation stage and how they were able to prevent more injuries. when the fire initially started, they were trying to put it out. they realized the fire was getting away from them, according to the mayor, who is also a volunteer firefighter. he had ordered that people start evacuating the area. within minutes of that was when the explosion happened. a tragic scene here in west. the mayor himself was slightly his helmet was blown off. his house was damaged. windows and doors blown out. as many here in town did. and he s concerned about the firefighters who he says are missing. as we continue to look at the numbers, you reported to us just moments ago. they re coming out of hillcrest baptist medical center. just by that one location, that
undergo surgeries tonight. and will perform a few more, according to doctors. at temple, there have been two patients admitted. at providence hospital, 65 patients admitted in the hospital. joining me is louise mills. louise, where are you a resident of? tell us what brings you in the middle of the night, to west, texas? i m looking for my brother, who has been missing since the explosion. what s your brother s name? morris burgess. tell us how you came to know that he is in trouble? i had some friends that were seeing the local news. they tell me that west had a big explosion. and i knew my brother was a volunteer fire department firefighter. and when i started calling him, he never answered. and i just got in the car and
ground, smelling of smoke. perhaps a smell of ammonia. in the seventh hour. talking to another reporter on the ground. he was giving us the arc of how the story had changed. any smell on the ground, quickly? not at all. i m walking around downdown west, texas. you wouldn t expect to smell anything. but that could change in the next three to four hours when this major cold front sweeps across the state. comes across and changes the winds from the south to the north. at that point, we might be able to see the smoke and smell it. for now, most of the town of west is unaffected by the smoke or the fumes. that s good news, charles, that we don t have reports of any sort of smell. okay. charles hadlock on the ground. we re going to get back to you later after this break. we re live in west, texas.