Merry Christmas from the TYMCO Family
Kenneth and Gary Young enclosed the following letter with Christmas gifts given to Friends of TYMCO:
TYMCO Friends,
The West Fertilizer Plant explosion on April 17, 2013, will be a day that people in Central Texas and specifically within the TYMCO Family will never forget.
The City of West is a small, tight-knit community that is rich in Czech heritage located about fifteen minutes north of Waco. Numerous individuals from West are part of the TYMCO Family, and in many ways, the success and growth of TYMCO can be attributed to the strength of the West community. Fortunately, everyone at TYMCO who lived in West at the time of the accident was accounted for, although several received minor injuries and/or lost their homes.
In reaction to this devastation, TYMCO was there to start rebuilding and help get West back to “normal”. In these types of situations, it is very important to get the roads back to safe operating condition to allow access for emergency response personnel and residents to return to their homes to begin rebuilding. The protocol for this emergency response included street sweeping as a top priority item. Just days later, TYMCO provided both volunteers and equipment for the clean-up effort. A TYMCO Model 500x and Model 435 were put to work removing blast debris from the streets. In addition to the sweepers, teams of volunteers were assigned to each sweeper to both operate and remove large items to make the clean-up process more efficient. Among the volunteers were TYMCO employees who live in and around West as well as some that had their homes affected by the blast. Three solid days of sweeping had to take place before officials allowed West citizens whose homes were affected to return to start recovering personal items. After this initial clean-up, TYMCO returned every week over several months ensuring the streets were clean during the demolition/rebuilding of homes and buildings in the blast zone.
Every year, the City of West celebrates their strong Czech history with a festival known as Westfest (www.westfest.com) over Labor Day weekend in early September. Although the town was still recuperating from the tragedy a few months prior, the celebration still occurred with impressive numbers. TYMCO helped prepare for the festival and the rush of people by sweeping the entire city including the blast zone.
Since the West Fertilizer Plant explosion, TYMCO has donated hundreds of hours of both labor and equipment to assist in rebuilding this important community.
In honor of the City of West, and those of the West community, we felt it was appropriate to share a part of our Czech heritage with a Christmas gift from a longtime local bakery located in downtown West, The Village Bakery. For several months after the blast, The Village Bakery served as a comfortable meeting place for those aiding in the recovery. For more information on the history of this 60-year-old bakery, visit wacoan.com/wacoeats/profiles17.htm.
Please enjoy, and thank you for your support this year!
Veselé Vánoce (Merry Christmas),
The TYMCO Family
Kenneth J. Young
Gary B. Young
