you have a lot of republicans up in blue states like pat toomey, for example, ron johnson, kelly ayotte. these guys, there might be even a better chance closer to those elections. how much was 2014 versus 2016, it was a big difference? it was. got to leave it there. been a very busy day. michael crow by, shira, kristen, got a lot of work to do. indeed. that s it for this edition. keep watching for the latest. more from texas on the explosion and more on the boston investigation, the interfaith service is set to start in one hour. we will have that live here. we just learned that the president will be meeting with families of those who were injured or killed in those boston marathon bombings. that will happen probably after the service. he ll also meet with those first responders who were there on the scene running towards the bombs and trying to rescue people? anyway, stay with us all day. coming up next, chris jansing.
and by 7:45 they realized the fire was out of control and the fire chief ordered all of his men out of the burning plant. it was too late. seven minutes later the plant exploded. the explosion could be felt up to 70 miles away. i was in kaufman county covering the d.a. murders there and i was inside a building and the windows shook. we thought it s not supposed to be raining. the thunderstorms aren t supposed to be here for several hours. that must have been a big gust of wind. a few minutes later the cell phones started going off and we knew it was much worse than that. a terrible explosion here in the city of west. here are the latest numbers. 160 people injured. the fatality count is somewhere between 5 and 15. local authorities say between three and five firefighters are among the dead and possibly one law enforcement officer is missing. and our affiliate in houston
we are waiting now for a briefing here in west, texas, from authorities. as you can see they re doing mike test here to give us an update on exactly what s going on. a massive fertilizer plant. a fire started. firefighters were fighting it and then the explosion as that was happening. here s the briefing. bear with me on my voice. i ll talk the best i can and give you as much as i can but you re going to have to bear with me. if we get to the point of asking questions towards the end of this again, please speak loudly enough where i can hear you so i don t have to keep asking you what, what, what. okay. here s where we stand at this point. eventually probably in the next couple of hours i will be
so, bill, weather obviously on one hand is cooling things down and we know that means there won t be new explosions but it will set back search and rescue. it already has. they didn t have power so there wasn t much lights. they re debris fields trying to go through homes which isn t safest for first responders any way. they have been working for first light to come but unfortunately they ve had rain all morning long and they haven t had ideal conditions there either. let me show you the town itself. this is the northern portion of west, texas. a small town roughly over 2,500 people. no more than 3,000. on the right-hand side of your screen, that s the fertilizer plant. it s not a big place. it s a small fertilizer plant. it had three chemical tanks silo type buildings and then two main buildings. there s where the fire started and then the explosion at 7:50. here s what we do know. the middle school across the street was relatively almost completely empty thankfully. all of the kids
community. i spent a good bit of yesterday in dorchester, which is the community where the youngest victim, just 8 years old is from. it s not surprising how much they are hurting and reality of what happened here is setting in after the shock is wearing off. it means a lot to them that the president will be here today. it is an interfaith service. there will be representatives from christian faiths, the chief rabbi here and cardinal o malley. people are waiting for the words from the president, chuck. all right. chris jansing, we ll have that live here on msnbc at 11:00 a.m. when you talk about community experiences with the president there, i ve seen clips last night of the boston bruins game where the entire crowd belted out the national anthem in this emotional and patriotic cry. chris jansing on the scene for us, thank you. we ll have more on the impact of that texas explosion next on the daily rundown.