METH LAB PUT INNOCENT BYSTANDERS IN JEOPARDY

Quick action by public safety agencies helped city avert a tragedy.

We know illicit drug dealers have the health of their customers last in
their list of priorities. Now, with the close call of a potential
amphetamine lab explosion near Ray High School, we also know they are
equally indifferent to the safety of the public at large.

Only by the quick actions of firefighters, deputies and other local law
officers did Corpus Christi avoid a massive tragedy on Wednesday. It was
only a coincidence that the raid on the secret lab happened as the illegal
deadly batch of drugs was being cooked. And the deadly combination of a
volatile chemical mix being prepared under, at best, make-shift
circumstances, and arriving law officers was compounded by the proximity of
a school where hundreds of students were present.

Luckily, Ray High School officials quickly put the school on an emergency
footing while federal agents got the chemicals under control.

The danger was real, just as the indifference to public safety was real on
the part of the lab's operators. One person was taken into custody. A
scenario in which toxic fumes and intense flames might roar out of a
massive blowup is unthinkable, given the number of innocent bystanders who
might have been affected.

Drugs can kill in more ways than one.