The fertilizer-plant explosion that killed 14 and injured about 200 others in Texas last month highlights the failings of a U.S. federal law intended to save lives during chemical accidents, a Reuters investigation has found.

Known as the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, the law requires companies to tell emergency responders about the hazardous chemicals stored on their properties. But even when companies do so, the law stops there: After the paperwork is filed, it is up to the companies and local firefighters, paramedics and police to plan and train for potential disasters.

West Fertilizer Co. of West, Texas, had a spotty reporting record. Still, it had alerted a local emergency-planning committee in February 2012 that it stored potentially deadly chemicals at the plant. Firefighters and other emergency responders never acted upon that information to train for the kind of devastating explosion that happened 14 months later, according to interviews with surviving first responders, a failing that likely cost lives.

Related story: 800,000 live near large amounts of chemical blamed in blast

It's a scenario that has played out in chemical accidents nationwide - one that the U.S. Chemical Safety Board has repeatedly identified as contributing to deaths and injuries spanning more than a decade.

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The emergency response to the fire and explosion in West is among the issues the board is examining as it investigates the disaster, said Daniel Horowitz, the regulatory board's managing director.

"One universal finding about these sorts of accidents is no one fully recognized how hazardous the material or process was," he said. "And I don't think this one will be any different."

The problem with the Emergency Planning act is that it relies on small fire departments to plan and train for fires and explosions involving any number of highly hazardous chemicals, said Neal Langerman, chemical and health safety officer at the American Chemical Society. Those fire departments are often staffed by volunteers, funded by charitable contributions and lacking high-tech equipment.

"The West, Texas, first responders were doing the best they could under the circumstances," Langerman said. "The failure was in the community, county and state leadership to provide emergency planning and implementation guidance."

"I don't think it's appropriate to beat up on what the first responders did at the time of detonation, but everything that led up to it - preparedness and preparation - was lacking," Langerman said.

West Mayor Tommy Muska, a member of the volunteer fire department, said he does not want to engage in second-guessing. "I think our fire department did an excellent job in protecting the people," he said. Ten first responders died in the disaster.

Langerman said he has seen the same problem again and again, and not just in Texas: Many first responders across the United States lack the training and resources to respond to hazardous chemical accidents, he said.

See Reuters' interactive map of sites storing large amounts of ammonium nitrate

The lack of preparedness endangers not only firefighters and emergency medical technicians, but also people nationwide living near chemical stockpiles similar to those that exploded in West.

At least 800,000 people in the United States live within a mile of 440 sites that store potentially explosive ammonium nitrate, which investigators say was the source of the explosion in West, according to a Reuters analysis of hazardous-chemical storage data maintained by 29 states.

Hundreds of schools, 20 hospitals, 13 churches and hundreds of thousands of homes in those states sit within a mile of facilities that store the compound, used in both fertilizers and explosives, the analysis found.

Of the remaining 21 states, 10 declined Reuters' requests for data, and one declined to release the information in electronic form. The rest either provided incomplete information, did not respond, don't maintain the filings electronically or are still considering the requests. Federal law requires such information be made available to the public within 45 days of a request. Reuters requested the information four weeks ago.

Even the Chemical Safety Board, the federal agency charged with investigating chemical accidents nationwide, does not have access to a complete national inventory.

Since 1990, companies have reported more than 380 incidents involving ammonium nitrate to the National Response Center, a federal agency that collects reports of spills, leaks and other discharges within the United States. Eight people were killed, 66 injured and more than 6,300 evacuated in those incidents, according to the center's data.

But incident reporting is voluntary, and center officials say the records cover only a fraction of all incidents.

'No one knew'

Preparation for a potential ammonium nitrate explosion in West should have begun after the company first reported storing the compound under the EPCRA law. That act was passed by Congress in 1986 after a chemical gas leak two years earlier in Bhopal, India, killed 4,000 people. The intention was to inform the U.S. public and emergency responders about the dangers so they could plan for accidents.

Documents on file with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality show that West Fertilizer was handling thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate as early as 2006. It wasn't until February 2012 that the company listed the compound on a federally required hazardous-chemical inventory, known as a Tier II filing. The company listed ammonium nitrate on the Tier II report it submitted to the Local Emergency Planning Committee in McLennan County.

The company was required to file copies of the same report with the Texas Department of State Health Services and the West Volunteer Fire Department. Texas DSHS records show the company's February 2012 Tier II filing did not list ammonium nitrate. Company officials have declined to speak with reporters.

Local officials said they were not aware of the reporting discrepancy until Reuters brought it to their attention on Friday. State officials asked a Reuters reporter to send a copy of the local filing, and said they have alerted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about it because of EPA's enforcement authority over EPCRA.

In February 2013, the company submitted its 2012 Tier II report to Texas DSHS. The county's Local Emergency Planning Committee has no record of receiving a copy, said Mike Dixon, a McLennan County attorney.

It is unclear whether the company ever filed a Tier II report with the local fire department.

What is clear is that when the plant caught fire on April 17, people inside the fire trucks and ambulances that rushed to the scene did not know how much ammonium nitrate was on hand or how quickly it could produce a massive explosion. They had never trained for a scenario like the one that unfolded, said firefighter Kevin Maler.

In the 10 years he has served on the West Volunteer Fire Department, Maler said he never saw West Fertilizer's Tier II report. He added that the department never conducted drills to prepare for an explosion at the facility. Those observations were confirmed by other first responders Reuters interviewed who did not want to be named.

"No one ever knew you were going into something like that," Maler said.

Maler left the scene of the fire to retrieve protective gear. As he returned, the facility exploded, killing 10 first responders. The blast from the explosion shattered windows in his home, nearly a mile from the blast. His mother's house near the fertilizer facility was destroyed; she was not harmed.

A professional firefighter from a nearby community said he tried to look up West Fertilizer's Tier II report on his way to the scene. He did not know how to find it online, however, and he was unable to locate it.

West Fertilizer's owner, Donald Adair, declined to discuss the plant's emergency preparedness with a reporter. He also declined previous requests for comment. Earlier, he said he had instructed his employees to cooperate with investigators.

The West fire chief was injured in the explosion and has been unable to answer questions about the department's preparedness. He has referred reporters to Mayor Muska, a volunteer firefighter who was on his way to the scene when the plant exploded.

Muska's comments added to the uncertainty about whether West Fertilizer filed a Tier II report with the department. He said last week that he believed West Fertilizer had filed one. In an interview several weeks ago, he said the fire department had no hazard plan on the company because the plant sat outside town limits.

Regardless of what reports were on file, firefighters knew generally that the plant stored hazardous chemicals, Muska said. The plant foreman, Cody Dragoo, was among the firefighters who died in the blast and knew what was stored there, he said.

Muska rejects suggestions that first responders were not prepared, and he considers their efforts a success that night.

"The City of West and the McLennan County emergency planning and response system worked on April 17, 2013," he said in a letter he prepared last week for the media. "We evacuated half of our town, secured the affected area, searched for and rescued the injured, suppressed fires, and, in about two hours, transported more than 200 injured citizens to ready and waiting hospitals.... Make no mistake: 'volunteer' does not mean 'underprepared.'"

Deadly decisions

The initial responders' fates were sealed by the decision to fight the fire, which was reported to 9-1-1 operators at 7:29 p.m. The first firefighters arrived at the plant swiftly - about three minutes later.

They began spraying water on the fire from a tanker truck, and began laying hoses to the nearest fire hydrant, about 2,000 feet from the plant, farther than the length of their longest hose, said Maler, one of the surviving firefighters. They had decided to begin hosing down anhydrous ammonia tanks on the property, worried the tanks might overheat and explode, releasing the toxic gas into the atmosphere and endangering thousands of people who lived around the plant. An apartment complex and nursing home sat within a few hundred yards.

In hindsight, Maler said, fighting the fire was the wrong call. About 20 minutes after the responders got there, an explosion sent a massive fireball into the sky, killing most of the firefighters on the scene. The state fire marshal says ammonium nitrate was the source of the explosion. The exact cause of the fire and explosion remains undetermined.

Firefighters who have battled ammonium nitrate fires elsewhere - without death or injury to first responders - say having the Tier II information was critical to their success. They knew what they were facing going in, and responded accordingly.

Called to a fire at a similar fertilizer facility in 2009 in Bryan, Texas, firefighters opted not to fight the blaze. Although the circumstances were somewhat different - firefighters knew going in that ammonium nitrate already had ignited - the first responders decided to keep a safe distance and evacuate nearby residents. No one was injured, and the fire burned itself out.

Key to the response, said Chief Joe Ondrasek of the Brazos County Fire Department Precinct 4, was having the fertilizer company's Tier II report in hand. Firefighters were unable to contact the plant manager immediately, he said, and therefore relied on the report to inform their response.

A federally funded program intended to grant fire departments online access to the Tier II reports was not being used in West. Although some firefighters in Texas said they know about and use the system, known as E-Plan, others said they didn't know of its existence or how to access it.

Federal funding for the E-Plan system was eliminated last October, which could hurt efforts to keep it up and running.

McLennan County is working with a community college to develop a website that would make it easier for the public and first responders to access Tier II information, said Frank Patterson, emergency management coordinator for Waco and McLennan County.

"It's very similar to a sex offender registry," Patterson said. "It's like anything else, the more information you have, the better off you are."

Firefighters in Bryan also were better prepared to evacuate residents because they had what is known as a reverse 9-1-1 system that auto-dials residents in an affected area to notify them to get out. This is the preferred way to alert a community to an evacuation, fire safety experts say.

West lacks such a system. Emergency responders went door to door to notify residents of the need to leave, a process that Muska said started before the explosion and unfolded over about two hours. The community has emergency sirens, which sounded that night. But West residents said the sirens are used often for many types of incidents, and they had never been issued instructions about what to do when horns go off.

Applying the lessons

As part of its work in the wake of the West disaster, the Chemical Safety Board will examine the training and procedures that emergency responders had in place for ammonium nitrate and other hazardous fires, said board spokesman Hillary Cohen. The board will look for ways those procedures "can be made more protective for the over 1 million firefighters across the country," she said.

The board, in at least 15 other chemical accidents occurring in 13 different states since 2002, has found fault with companies for failing to inform responders about risks at their facilities; with responders for failing to plan, train and prepare for those risks; or with communities for failing to have effective systems in place to notify the public when an evacuation is needed.

Horowitz, of the Chemical Safety Board, pointed out the weakness of the federal reporting law.

"What we've often found is once you drill down to the local level, there's not a lot of resources for this activity," said Horowitz. "Congress provided the mandate back in 1986, but they didn't provide any real funding or regulatory authority."

Texas has awarded more than $3 million in grant money over the past three years to pay for hazardous-material training exercises and to help 26 Local Emergency Planning Committees understand the transport of hazardous materials through their communities, said Tom Vinger, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Texas Engineering Extension Service at Texas A&M University has trained about 6,000 first responders in handling hazardous material incidents, he said. Texas has about 50,000 paid and volunteer first responders.

Also, Vinger said, the state reviews local emergency-response plans, conducting more than 3,000 reviews in 2012. Vinger did not respond to questions about whether any money or training went to West or McLennan County.

"A common phrase in the emergency-management community is that all disasters are local," Vinger said. "The reason being that local governments and officials are best suited to identify, plan for and immediately respond to significant disasters that occur in their area."

Preparation for a hazardous-chemical incident will be discussed among emergency responders in McLennan County for a long time to come, said Patterson, the emergency coordinator. The county cannot require fire departments to develop emergency plans or tour hazardous chemical storage facilities in their communities, he said. But he said the county plans on providing them with direction and additional resources.

"There's no doubt we're going to encourage the fire departments to look at the facilities in their jurisdiction," Patterson said. "There's always lessons to learn going forward."

West's Mayor Muska agreed.

"We did a lot of things right," Muska said. "We did a lot of stuff that was probably not exactly right."

(Tim Gaynor contributed reporting from West, Texas, and Selam Gebrekidan and Joshua Schneyer from New York. M.B. Pell reported from West. Ryan McNeill and Janet Roberts reported from New York. Edited by Maurice Tamman and Michael Williams.)

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WASHINGTON - Shrinking budgets mean fewer firefighters will be available this summer even as unusually dry weather has increased the risk of fire in much of the West, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warned Monday.

"As a result of sequester and across-the-board cuts we will have about 500 fewer firefighters at the Forest Service than we would otherwise have," said Vilsack.

Cuts known as sequestration are forcing government agencies to reduce spending. They went into effect on March 1 after a gridlocked Congress failed to resolve fiscal fights and find an alternative to the sequestration.

The Forest Service relied on 10,500 firefighters during last year's fire season.

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With 48 percent of the continental United States under moderate to exceptional drought conditions and an insect blight having weakened western forests, the risk of fire is high as summer approaches, said Vilsack, who oversees the Forest Service.

"That is a prescription for very serious conditions," he said.

Vilsack spoke with Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell in a conference call organized from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Uncommonly dry forests in Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Washington state are full of woody fuel, officials said on the call.

California, too, is expected to be hard-hit. Nearly 850 wildfires had flared up in the state through the end of last month, far more than usual during the first four months of the year, officials say.

Vilsack and Jewell said the persistently hot, dry weather in some parts of the country was a reminder of the challenge that climate change poses.

"The twelve hottest years on record have been in the last fifteen years and that has been particularly true in the West," Jewell said.

Heavy rains have spared eastern states from serious fires so far, said Jeremy Sullens of the fire center, "but it is a different story out West where you have had severe drought conditions for quite some time now."

About 70,000 communities are situated on the fringes of wilderness across the country and so are particularly vulnerable, officials said.

More terrain was scorched by fires last year than at any time since 1960, Vilsack said, and this summer is likely to be comparable.

-- Reuters

Related story: 'Long, hot, incendiary summer': Early wildfires bode ill for California

A 9-year-old boy is alive thanks to the heroic efforts of several police officers. 

On Saturday, around 3:45 p.m., police were dispatched to a home on Billows Drive in East Greenwich, New Jersey. When they arrived, they learned that a 9-year-old boy with autism had wandered from the home in an unknown direction around 3:30 p.m. East Greenwich police, along with the police departments, fire departments and emergency crews from neighboring towns began to search for the boy.

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After searching for about an hour and a half, police and K9 units found the boy several hundred yards behind his home stuck in the Mantua Creek during low tide. The boy was about a quarter mile away from the shoreline and was submerged up to his neck in mud in extremely cold temperatures. Police say the boy was within several minutes of drowning due to the tide coming in.

See original report at NBCPhiladelphia.com

Police officers quickly took action and ran into the creek. At one point, investigators say the officers became submerged in the mud and water as well but managed to free themselves and get to the child. The boy was eventually freed and carried safely to land. The child was not seriously hurt and was reunited with his father after being treated at the hospital.

“The officers did an excellent job and are credited with saving the child’s life,” said Lieutenant Charles Barone of the East Greenwich Township Police Department. “The only casualties were several destroyed police uniforms.”  

Drone technology is not just for the battlefield. Now, drones can also be used to help fight fires.

While drones are commonly used by the military for surveillance and dropping bombs, unmanned aerial systems are now being developed for much broader uses outside the military.

Take, for instance, Datron's 2.5-pound drone equipped with a camera  “Scout.”

The Scout — which can fly above 1,500 feet and has a two-mile radius — can help firefighters do their job more safely and effectively, according to Orion Linekin of Datron.

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“The scout is designed as a squad level solution for that soldier on the front line or that firefighter public safety officer on the front line to get immediate situational awareness,” Linekin told NBC San Diego in an exclusive interview.

 

The drone’s design makes it ideal for helping fight fires.

"Anytime we have an aerial view for the incident commander it helps us make operational decisions," said Cal Fire San Diego Capt. Mike Mohler.

From Santa Ana winds-driven wildfires —  like those that sparked back in 2007 — to providing a rooftop view for structural fires, Capt. Mohler says drones like the Scout can be another tool to help firefighters prevent death and destruction.

“If it's a Santa Ana wind-driven fire, maybe the next affected neighborhood, but if we have an aerial drone up we can see the rate of spread and know that within a certain amount of time a certain neighborhood or community may be threatened,” added Mohler.

It's a simple system that can be flown right from a touchscreen tablet.

“Then we just climb by holding on to the altitude bar,” explained Linekin.

And the Scout’s size, and easy assembly, makes it ideal for on-scene commanders.

“There’s still going to be a need to bring in helicopter assets and water drop assets, but those take longer to get on scene. This is something that comes immediately out of the truck and, within five minutes, you can be looking at what you’ve got to deal with,” said Linekin.

A little drone, with a big picture, that can help save lives.

The Scout is being demonstrated for its use in assisting firefighters, and it's already been used in a HAZMAT situation.

For the aforementioned potential use in Santa Ana winds-driven fires like in 2007, the Scout can fly in sustained winds greater than 30 mph and has stayed airborne in gusts greater than 50 mph.

D.C. Fire and EMS denied Friday night that three local firefighters are facing possible disciplinary action after appearing with President Obama during a press event.

Earlier this week the president was flanked by first responders as he spoke about the impact of sequestration. Kenneth Ellerbe, chief of D.C.'s Fire and Emergency Medical Service Department, told News4 the three members of DCFEMS who participated in the event may have violated department regulations.

“I didn’t know about it, the deputy mayor didn’t know about it, the mayor didn’t know about it," Ellerbe said. "There should be protocol followed anytime one of our employees representing the District of Columbia appears at a public event.”

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The department released the following statement Friday night:

Contrary to reports in local media, the DC Fire and EMS Department is not considering any disciplinary action against uniformed personnel for appearing alongside President Obama. At the request of the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice, DC FEMS is simply reviewing its internal protocols for such appearances to ensure that both the Department and its employees are fully informed.

We fully support the efforts of President to highlight the essential and life saving work that our first-responders do every single day, and welcome his invitation for our members to participate. We're exceedingly proud of the men and women that wear the DC FEMS uniform, and thank the President for his support.

Ellerbe says the three firefighters have each been ordered to file a special report on the event detailing how they came to appear with the president and who authorized it.

Also on NBCWashington.com: Virginia lawmakers set to vote on transportation bill

“How did they get there, why were they there and why didn’t we know about it before?” Ellerbe said.

Ed Smith, president of Local 36 of the firefighter’s union, said his office facilitated the appearance by the firefighters. “The request came through the International Association of Firefighters,” Smith said, adding that it’s not the first time D.C. firefighters have been asked to appear with the president.

But he said, it’s the first time it’s been an issue. “We’ve done this before. I would hope it doesn’t come to any discipline. They were supporting our president,” he said.

Also on NBCWashington.com: Gun control law advances in Maryland

Ellerbe would not identify the department members involved, but one of those pictured is Lt. Robert Alvarado, who has been disciplined in the past by Ellerbe. In 2012 Alvarado was placed on leave after he wore a uniform with an outdated logo.

Ellerbe says requiring Alvarado and the others to explain why they attended the event in their dress uniforms is not payback for any previous incidents.

“There’s no payback, we don’t operate in a payback environment. I know folks say that but it’s not true.” Ellerbe insisted.

Ellerbe says none of the firefighters is facing termination, but added one of those involved is a woman who is new to the department and still on a probationary period.

This story was originally published on Fri Feb 22, 2013 6:55 PM EST

A man accused of intentionally starting a deadly five-alarm fire inside a SoHo apartment building after a domestic dispute with his child's mother may have lit several small fires in the hallway and apartment that eventually spread, NBC 4 New York has learned. 

Wei Chu Wu, 45, is charged with first-degree arson, second-degree murder and second-degree attempted assault of a police officer for allegedly fighting with first responders to keep them from entering the building at 41 Spring St. as the flames spread. A police officer suffered a broken hand in the confrontation, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Witnesses said they saw the suspect start a fire in the second-floor hallway about 6:40 p.m. Thursday after he got into an argument with a woman described by officials as the mother of his child. A source familiar with the investigation tells NBC 4 New York that he also may have lit other fires inside the apartment.

The fire quickly spread to the roof, and by the time firefighters arrived on the scene, the back of the building was fully engulfed, according to FDNY Chief of Fire Operations James Esposito. The fire wiped out the entire stairwell between the second and fifth floors of the building.

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Read original story at NBCNewYork.com

The person who died was on an upper floor at the time of the fire, Esposito said. Law enforcement officials said the body was so badly burned they haven't been able to identify the deceased person.

The suspect's child and the child's mother are accounted for.

Wu was awaiting arraignment and it was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.

About 200 firefighters responded to the blaze, which was declared under control after about three hours. Two civilians and seven firefighters suffered minor injuries. 

A firefighter from Los Angeles who was on vacation in New York City first noticed the fire from across the street and rushed over to help. The suspect tried to keep him out, and proceeded to fight with the first responders who arrived on the scene.

"He knocked me one time, didn't want me to go in the second time," the firefighter told NBC 4 New York on Friday.

The building is mixed retail-residential, with a Pinkberry frozen yogurt shop occupying the ground floor.

Updated: 4:58 p.m. ET: An upstate New York woman was arrested Friday and hit with federal and state charges connected to the fatal shootings of two volunteer firefighters on Christmas Eve.

The woman, Dawn Nguyen, 24, was charged with knowingly making a false statement in the purchase of guns used in the slayings, U.S. Attorney William Hochul told a news conference Friday. She was charged earlier on a state violation of filing a falsified business record.

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Hochul said Nguyen bought the guns on behalf of William Spengler, 62, who shot four firefighters responding to a fire he had started in his home on Monday outside Rochester, N.Y., killing two of them, before killing himself.

Nguyen "told the seller of these guns, Gander Mountain in Henrietta, that she was to be the true owner and buyer of the guns instead of William Spengler," he said. "It is absolutely against federal law to provide any materially false information related to the acquisition of firearms."

The complaint alleges that Nguyen acted as a "straw purchaser" for Spengler, who, as a convicted felon, could not legally own, acquire or purchase any firearm, Hochul said. The charges are related to an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun — two of the three weapons found near Spengler's body Monday, according to State Police Investigator James Sewell.

Hochul said that a suicide note left by Spengler "includes information about obtaining the guns" from Nguyen.

The third weapon, a .38-caliber revolver, was not connected to Nguyen, Sewell said.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported that Nguyen was arrested Friday afternoon at the home in Greece where she has been staying with her mother, Dawn Welsher.

Greece is about 5 miles north of Rochester and 2 miles west of Webster, where Spengler lived.

Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

Nguyen's lawyer, Dave Palmiere, told the newspaper that Nguyen bought the weapons legally and that they had been stolen. He said Nguyen didn't recall whether she reported the guns stolen.

Welsher told the Democrat and Chronicle that neither she nor her daughter, Nguyen, gave or sold Spengler the weapons. 

"This is nuts," she said, according to the newspaper. "I never supplied this man with nothing. My daughter never supplied him with anything. He's setting us up."

The federal charge carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine, The Associated Press reported.

Spengler spent 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother in 1980.
    
After Monday's attack, a body was also discovered in Spengler's burned home. Investigators have said they believe the remains are those of his sister, Cheryl Spengler, 67, who lived with him. In all, seven houses were destroyed in the blaze.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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ARLINGTON, Texas – Ten years after a baby was left wrapped in blankets outside an Arlington fire station on a cold day in 2002, a little boy spent his birthday with the firefighter who found him.

After being one of the first infants found under the state's Baby Moses Law, which designates fire stations as a safe haven, Koregan Quintanilla was adopted by a loving family.

He's now 10 years old, and he asked to return to the fire station celebrate his birthday with Wesley Keck, the firefighter who found and cared for him a decade ago.

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 "He was asleep at the time; I touched him enough to get him moving, to let me know that he was breathing. I picked him up and brought him into the station," Keck recalled.

Read the original report | More from NBCDFW.com

Koregan has dreams of being a firefighter some day.

"He wants to be a lawyer. He wants to be everything all at once because he's 10, but always first -- fireman, always first," said Koregan's mother, Rebecca Quintanilla.

On Thursday, Koregan was chief of the station. He got to ride in a firetruck, flash the lights and shoot the water gun.

Koregan said he's not special -- just another kid. But to the firefighters at Station 12, he's a little boy they won't forget.

"I was excited that I got to meet him," Koregan said. "I'm glad I get to come here and see everyone, because this is my fire station that I was abandoned at."

Koregan was adopted on National Adoption Day. The next one happens Saturday.

Across the county, 4,500 children in foster care are expected to join their forever families.