As working-age Japanese have left rural areas to seek jobs, urban Japan has sprawled outward, but also headed straight upward, with massive apartment towers rising everywhere.

FORBES: Japan's Green Gold Mine

The demolished home was one of many in the Georgia city of Adairsville splintered by a massive storm front as it punched across the Southeast on Wednesday and then headed across the densely populated Eastern Seaboard.

WSJ: 2 dead after storms rake South, move to Northeast

Then in early March, 2009, when the 2008-2009 financial meltdown seemed at its worst, near panic that the economy was headed still lower into the next Great Depression, the widespread opinion being that the massive bailouts by the government could not possibly work, the stock market launched into what has become an impressive four-year bull market.

FORBES: Usually Right, The Market Says No Problem For Economy In Sight

Alford said the firefighters headed toward the scene and then between five and 10 minutes later, he heard a massive explosion.

CNN: Explosion hits fertilizer plant north of Waco, Texas