LONGVIEW, Wash. — Minutes before he died, Jared Ammons texted his wife from his job at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. Hardly an hour ever passed that the two weren’t sending messages back and forth.

“He texted me that he loves me and that I’m beautiful,” Mackenzie Ammons, 32, said in an interview with The Seattle Times on Friday, three days since a deadly chemical spill at the Longview pulp and paper mill.

Jared sent those messages each and every day, Mackenzie Ammons said. He was a doting and attentive husband and the couple were planning their future together. Not only were they raising two of her children from a previous relationship but they found out a week earlier that Mackenzie was about 10 weeks pregnant with their first child together.

Tuesday morning, Jared Ammons, 35, arrived early to work so he could leave early and join Mackenzie at a doctor’s appointment for an ultrasound. But he wouldn’t live to make the appointment and hear that their unborn child has a strong heartbeat and is already very healthy, Mackenzie said.

Around 7:20 a.m., a massive, 900,000-gallon tank, holding heavily caustic chemicals used to make paper, imploded and tore through the mill, killing Jared Ammons and at least 10 others, and injuring even more with severe chemical burns. The compounds also contaminated a stretch of the Columbia River.

In the days since, the community has been reeling and public officials are calling for an investigation into what is likely the deadliest industrial accident in Washington’s recent history. Cleanup crews are moving to contain the chemicals and the destruction they’ve left in their wake.

Mackenzie Ammons shifted from planning her family’s future with her husband to planning his funeral. Their four-year wedding anniversary is less than a month away.

Friday morning Ammons sat around her mother’s dining room table with her younger sister holding her arm for support. And she remembered how she met her husband online. Initially, she left him hanging but once they connected she knew immediately Jared was the partner for her.

The pair were always together, said Tracy Bevard, Mackenzie Ammons’ mother. They didn’t even split up to grocery shop.

Jared Ammons grew up in Rainier, Oregon, while Mackenzie is from Longview, where they had lived together. They both enjoyed spending time with their families and generally he was a reserved man, Ammons said. Except when they were with each other — in those moments he’d talk her ear off.

He was a family man. Mindful of her needs. Not long ago, Ammons said she was laid out after some dental work. Jared took over the cooking, handled her medication schedule and even set alarms on his phone to make sure she replenished the ice packs on her face.

Jared Ammons loved to fish and as a family they’d camp. Or they’d jet off to Disney (World and Land) with their children, 14-year-old Carson and 9-year-old Bailey. He’d hop on the rides with Carson that Mackenzie was too nervous to ride.

Jared Ammons was an electrician by trade and he took pride in his work, Mackenzie Ammons said. He worked in Hillsboro, Oregon, for a time but a couple of years ago accepted a job at the Nippon Dynawave mill to be closer to home. Not to mention his shift there would end at 3:30 p.m., which would build in extra time with the children, both of whom are active in sports.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Jared repaired a weed whacker with Carson. The two were pleased with their work but the machine still made an odd noise so they made plans to track down the sound soon and fix that next, Ammons said.

She knew work at the mill could be dangerous and worried about her husband. Over the years he repeatedly expressed concerns about conditions there, wondering aloud whether someone would eventually be killed.

Simeon Osborn, a Seattle attorney representing Ammons, said he’s looking deeper into the accident and believes the disaster could have been prevented.

Day to day, though, Ammons felt comfortable about her husband’s work because she knew he would double- and triple-check everything. He had been seeking out different jobs at the mill, building his skill set to hopefully find another job. Preferably not another mill, Ammons said. The culture at Nippon Dynawave soured him on that idea.

The couple were busy looking ahead. They tried for years to conceive and a week ago, when Mackenzie learned she was pregnant, she was so deep in denial that it took three tests to convince her. She called Jared crying tears of joy.

“He told me everything was going to be OK because I had him,” Ammons said. “And we were going to raise this baby together.”

A few days later, the couple shared another moment of anticipation: Mackenzie’s baby bump had begun to show.

The morning of the accident, Ammons caught a post on Facebook that something had gone wrong at the mill and her stomach sank. She texted Jared but didn’t hear back. A bit later she and others from the community gathered at the union hall in town. There they learned the nature of the disaster and that some of their family members and friends would not be returning home. Not until Thursday did a chaplain explain to Mackenzie that her husband was one of those killed.

Nippon Dynawave company officials only called to tell Ammons how she could soon collect Social Security and that they’d send her husband’s last paycheck, Osborn said. She hasn’t heard from them since.

Officials with Nippon Dynawave could not immediately be reached for comment.

Ammons is still in shock, even numb. She gave thanks for her family, on whom she has been able to lean. But her children took the news hard, she said.

“He was their whole world,” she said.

As they grow, she wants her children to know how much Jared loved them, how much he wanted to do for them and how hard he worked.

But right now, what Ammons wants to know are answers. What caused this disaster and why? Why was her family torn apart just as it was beginning to grow?

“You never expect to send your husband to work and not have him come home that day,” she said.

Public officials and others are calling for accountability as well as details emerge surrounding the mill’s history of clean air, water and safety violations. Jared Ammons is the second victim publicly identified, alongside Gilbert Bernal. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board said on Wednesday it will investigate the fatal disaster. State and federal officials remain in Longview, examining the site and working to clean the environmental damage.

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