WOODS CROSS -- More than 200 Woods Cross residents met with city officials Tuesday concerning last week's Silver Eagle refinery explosion.
Refinery officials were at the meeting at Legacy Preparatory Academy but did not speak and declined to comment.
The residents wanted to know how the city will work toward making the area safer.
"I'm Linda Wood, and I live at ground zero," said a woman whose home was condemned following the blast.
One of the suggestions brought up was to make the buffer area larger between the refinery and the subdivision where Wood lives.
Wood said she opposes that suggestion but recommended the city require the wall between her house and the refinery be made taller.
The refinery blast forced four families, including Wood, from their homes and damaged possibly 120 homes.
The blast severely damaged 10 homes and was caused by a burst pipe that sprayed hydrogen gas onto a nearby heater, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration also met with the company in the past week.
OSHA records show the company was cited for five violations in a January fire, but the case file had not been closed. Other violations, 18 in total, were listed by OSHA in 2002 and 2004 reports.
Robert Moore owns property north of the refinery.
"The wall did a pretty good job," Moore said.
He, like others at the meeting, wanted to know how and what the city proposes to do.
"We're not going to shut them down," Moore said. "They've been there since the 1940s."
City Manager Gary Uresk gave a presentation before residents were allowed to comment.
He cited two engineering reports that were done between 2001 and 2002 before the city gave approval for the subdivision. Neither report cited any potential problems with pipes but were concerned with how far buildings should be from tanks.
Uresk said once the subdivision was approved in 2002, the city council stipulated that the developer would put on the deeds a disclosure that the properties were close to refineries with flame towers so residents would be exposed to "light, odor and sound."
Also, the area was zoned residential between 1977 and 1981, not in 2002, as Mayor Kent Parry had said in earlier reports.
Parry apologized to residents for his previous misstatement.
South Davis Metro Fire Marshal Steve Cox also told residents he required the developer to build an elevated wall between the oil refinery and the subdivision.
After Tuesday's explosion, he inspected the wall and found no damage.
"It did its job," Cox said.
Councilwoman Jill Evans said she is concerned now that she knows this type of explosion can happen.
"It's paramount now we need to decide how we can make people safe," she said.
The 10-inch pipe was carrying 630 pounds of pressurized hydrogen when it ruptured around 9 a.m. that day.
The pipe was attached to a reactor that removes waxes from diesel fuel. The pipe normally carries diesel and hydrogen, but the refinery was performing maintenance at the time of the failure and mostly hydrogen was in the pipe, officials said.
The CSB plans to evaluate the mechanical integrity of the faulty refinery unit and will look at safety issues regarding how close the homes are to the company operations.
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