Ammonium Nitrate Explosion Held Cause of Texas Disaster

Ammonium Nitrate Explosion Held Cause of Texas Disaster

Combination of Circumstances, Including Permitting Peacetime Concentration of War-Time Fire-Explosion Hazards and Failure to Evaluate Risks, Results in Near Record Disaster

Editor’s Foreword: In all its seventy years of recording the history of the fire service. FIRE ENGINEERING has never known such a succession of tragic and costly catastrophes as have occurred in the first quarter of 1947, climaxed by the Texas City holocaust of April 16.

More than thirty-five disasters, causing approximately 500 deaths, were already recorded for 1947 before the Texas City explosions and fire. All this at a time when the nation’s fire prevention and fire protection experts were making the greatest efforts of their lives to control the rising tide of destruction— efforts which the White House will officially augment with the President’s Conference on Fire Prevention, held May 6, 7 and 8 last.

The Texas City tragedy is so epochal, so vast and far-reaching in its ramifications and implications, and there are so many significant factors relating to its cause and effects, that manifestly it will be some time before the entire story can be told, if it ever can.

Meanwhile, and until that time, the following account, which is based upon advance information received from FIRE ENGINEERING’S correspondents, including officials of the fire service, news agencies and other reliable sources, may be accepted as preliminary.

AT about 9:12 A.M. on April 16 the nitrate-laden freighter Grandcamp blew up on the waterfront of Texas City, Texas, setting off a chain of explosions and fires.

The exact loss of life will probably never be known but at this writing the known dead are listed at 433 by Mayor C. Trahan and the missing given as 302 by the State Department of Public Safety. The number of injured ran into the thousands. The property loss is estimated at from $50,000,000 to $125,000,000.

The tragedy virtually wiped out most of the dockside facilities and industries in the thriving war-boom city of 16,000 people on Galveston Harbor, destroying. in addition, three freighters and their cargoes, over 500 railway cars and 1,500 motor vehicles. More than 1,200 families were made homeless by the explosions, which also did serious damage to business and public buildings.

At the same time, the holocaust set a new record of fatalities for the fire service of the country, when the initial explosion killed over half of the city’s volunteer fire department of forty-seven officers and men, and wiped out its entire fire fighting equipment.

Before proceeding into the causes and results of the explosions and fires, it would be well to review the scene of the disaster and the events leading up to it.

Indirectly, the Texas City tragedy is the outcome of the recent World War. Informed persons say that the explosions and fires occurred in one of the greatest concentrations of hazardous industries in Texas, if not in the entire South. And this concentration is, for the most part, a development of the war.

Texas City, in addition to being heavily industrialized, is a major shipping center. It is located on the mainland, across Galveston Bay from Galveston, eleven miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Its outer harbor is shared by that city. The harbor is 800 feet wide and over five miles long, extending from the Gulf between two protecting breakwaters to Bolivar Roads, the terminal of Texas City, Galveston and Houston ship channels. Texas City is also an intersection of the intracoastal canal.

Texas City itself, spurred by wartime activity, grew in population from a small community to a municipality of about 16,000 persons. Its industries and shipping facilities are crowded for the most part within a mile square area lying south and southeast of the city proper. The concentration included, in addition to the Monsanto Chemical Company’s vast plant, six major industrial properties and a number of other enterprises of lesser magnitude. The kernel of these industrial properties is the Texas City Terminal Railway Company, with its tracks, warehouses and railroad and dock facilities. All told, the properties represent an investment of over $125,000,000.

Most vulnerable of all the city’s industries to a waterfront explosion was the Monsanto Chemical plant, which had in progress at the time of the disaster a $1,000,000 expansion program, including additional facilities to produce polystrene, a chemical basic in the production of plastics. The plant, completed by the Government in 1943 at a reported cost of $18,900,000, was sold to Monsanto by the War Assets Administration last August. It was built to make styrene, an important ingredient in synthetic rubber manufacture. Styrene is processed from propane, which is a product of recycled gas, and benzine. It had a reported capacity of 62,000 tons of styrene daily and had been operating with two shifts. It is reported that the Monsanto plant had been erected upon sixty-foot piling to give it foundation in the low lands which it occupied, projecting into the Bay just south of the poorer residential district of the city. This construction is said to have been at least a partial factor in the plant’s destruction, following the ship blast.

Directly south of the Monsanto plant, along the waterfront, are six piers, connected by spurs of the Terminal Railway Company. These piers varied in length from 750 ft. to 1,160 ft. and in width from 100 ft. to 157 ft. They were occupied by the usual one-story pier shed with the exception of Pier B, the longest in the group, which had a twostory structure. Lying between the Monsanto property and the northernmost pier was the “North Slip.” Here were located the loading facilities for the recently resumed sea-train service between Texas City and New York. This service, abandoned during the war, had been reinstated only recently, the ships carrying entire railroad trains of up to forty freight cars between the two ports. On the north side of the slip, between the Monsanto plant and Terminal properties, is the gigantic crane used in handling cars.

The freighter S.S. Grandcamp was located on the south side of this slip at the time of the fire. The S.S. High Flyer and the S.S. Wilson B. Keene were located in the “Main Slip” between Piers A and B, the latter to the south. This slip was about in line with the on-shore string of Terminal warehouses and the huge grain elevator.

Located inland, or west of the Monsanto plant, about six blocks from the shoreward plant boundary, are the properties of the Atlantic Pipe Line Company and Stone Oil Company. To the south of them, and along the GalvestonTexas City Highway, is the property of the Republic Oil Refining Company, and west and southwest of its considerable oil storage farms is located the vast Pan-American Refining Corporation.

In the area directly south of the Terminal Railway Company’s yards, warehouses and other properties, including the grain elevator and handling plant, are extensive refineries and oil storage farms of the Southport Republic Terminal (formerly the Continental Oil Company); The Humble Pipe Line Company (Humble Oil and Refining Company); additional properties of the Republic Oil Refining Company; and the Southport Petroleum Company.

The remainder of the city’s large industrial plants were less vulnerable to a waterfront explosion. They are located north of the city and across it front the bayside. The great Pan-American Refinery, shown on the diagram, is between a mile-and-a-half and two miles from the waterside. Adjacent to it, and still further away from the waterfront (not shown on the diagram) is the gigantic plant of the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation, which has currently been active in a $16,000,000 expansion program. Approximately three miles further southwest is the only tin smelter on the American Continent, that of the Tin Processing Corporation.

Although all construction details are not available, it is reported that the wharfs and warehouses in the Texas City Terminal Railway area were about 40 per cent fire resistive. The warehouse contents, on the other hand, were combustible and, in some cases, highly so. The oil and other flammable liquid tank facilities of the chemical and oil companies were reported generally to be designed, constructed and protected in accordance with the established safety practices of their respective industries. It is doubtful, however, if the builders ever envisaged these facilities being exposed to the destructive blast conditions that wrecked or damaged them.

As is indicated by the diagram and pictures, the hazardous facilities were for the most part so situated and condensed in the mile-square area, as to present dangerous group vulnerability. Their general proximity to the residential and business areas of the city constituted an additional threat.

The set-up was made-to-order for the catastrophe.

The Texas City disaster was the worst in point of firemen killed ever experienced in the history of the nation’s volunteer fire service.

On the morning of the discovery of the fire in the Grandcamp, the Texas City Volunteer Fire Department numbered forty-seven members, all volunteers except the drivers, who were paid men. Three days later only twenty were left alive, according to current information.

Twenty-seven members of the department responded to the initial alarm of fire shortly after 8:00 A.M., April 16. Aided by members of the crew and dock workers and by some members of local oil refinery fire brigades, the four pieces of apparatus were manned, lines stretched to the dock and aboard the burning freighter.

Fire Chief H. J. Baumgartner, for many years volunteer head of the fire fighters, was early at the scene, he being an employe of the Terminal Railway Company and his office being located right at the docks. Also directing the fire fighting operations were First Assistant Chief Joe M. Brady and Captains S. B. Numez and W. G. Johnson.

Not one of these men survived the blast that disintegrated the ship and set off the chain of explosions which devastated the port. With them into eternity went all the others who were aiding the volunteers. At this writing, of the twenty-seven known firemen dead or missing, only one body has been located and identified.

At the beginning of the fire, the Texas City Fire Department had four pieces of fire apparatus. The explosion destroyed all four units. Friday, following the fatal blast, the wrecked remains of two trucks were found, one fantastically intermingled with sections of the torn freighter, all piled atop a barge, many feet from tbe dockside. Of the other two department units, not a trace remained.

Providentially for him, Fred Dowdy, Second Assistant Chief, was out of the city at the time of the tragedy and became the only surviving officer. On Friday, April 18, he was named Acting Chief. On that day, five of the twenty survivors worked silently around the almost new firehouse to repair the blast damage. Soon after, when U. S. Army surplus fire trucks came rolling into the city, the survivors had their ranks strengthened by substitutes.

Paradoxically, the very immensity of the calamity speeded the relief to the stricken community. No sooner had the first flash of the tragedy been sent out over the reported single telephone line left in service after the initial explosions, than the radio world was given the news through the commercial broadcast stations and networks. Fire and police municipal short-wave radio carried the initial calls for help to surrounding areas and before nightfall on the 16th, the vast and complicated machinery of aid and relief was in motion.

Fire and Police Departments from the Gulf Coast cities in a 100-mile radius rushed in to help. From an airplane, observers could see fire trucks speeding toward Texas City, mostly coming from the direction of Galveston. It is reported that many communities dispatched firemen and policemen without waiting any direct calls for help.

Hard on the heels of the emergency services came the relief agencies. Governor Beauford H. Jester of Texas flew to the area to personally direct these efforts. Rescue workers, doctors, nurses, hospital corpsmen arrived in every form of conveyance. Aiding the State of Texas were the Armed Services, the Red Cross and veterans organizations. The Fourth Army sent aid from San Antonio; the Tenth Air Force was named coordinator of transportation, rushing planes to St. Louis to pick up 12,000 pounds of blood plasma. Two other army planes from Bergstrom, Texas, were loaded with 8,750 pounds of plasma. The Eighth Naval District rushed doctors and other personnel from New Orleans. A chemical officer brought 500 gas masks from San Antonio, to assist rescuers in entering gas charged areas. From Fort Worth came 10,000 blankets by plane. Medical aid poured in by air from cities all along the state’s scheduled airline routes. The Governor alerted two battalions of Texas State Guardsmen at Houston to add 400 men to the 150 State Troopers who quickly moved in from nearby Laporte. All told, there were over 1,500 law-enforcement personnel, including guardsmen, police, Texas rangers and sheriffs reported in service.

The Texas Highway Department moved in tractors, bulldozers and other wrecking equipment.

The Coast Guard rushed a half dozen boats through Galveston Bay to Texas City and also set up a radio communications truck.

From Corpus Christi came an airplane carrying five doctors, five nurses, two Navy pharmacists mates and a load of supplies including morphine and blood plasma. The Red Cross flew in a plane-load of gas masks from Ellington Field, near Houston. Medical supplies, including whole blood, plasma, tetanus and gas gangrene antitoxin, came from St. Louis.

The Navy put a 700-bed hospital at Houston and a 500-bed hospital at Fort Crockett, near Galveston, in the hands of the Red Cross. The latter organization also flew in disaster personnel and funds. Two-way radio communication was maintained between the disaster chairman of the Freeport Chapter at the scene, and Red Cross Midwest area headquarters in St. Louis.

Early, teletype communications were installed between the stricken city and Dallas. Striking telephone workers were ordered back to work in the emergency but some press accounts state they resumed their striking before the emergency was declared over.

In Washington, the Federal Communications Commission cleared air channels for emergency radio communications with the blasted area. Government experts in gas and explosion control and relief were sped to the scene.

The Water System Partially Fails

The water supply system for domestic and fire fighting use in Texas City was considered adequate for normal demands. Water is provided by wells.

The Terminal had its own supply, consisting of two elevated water-tanks each of 10,000 gallon capacity and a 300,000 gallon reservoir. There was a pump-house located about 900 feet from the scene of the explosion. Although of fire-resistive construction, it was flattened by the blast which put the entire Terminal system out of commission, and led to reports that the city’s supply had failed.

The pump-house of the Monsanto Chemical plant was also rendered useless by the initial blast. Water failure also made it impossible to use foam in fighting the fires in storage tanks of the Humble and Carbide plants.

It is reported the majority of the wharfs and warehouses in the Terminal area were unsprinklered and that where they were, the piping was ruptured by the explosion and there is no evidence to indicate that any sprinklers operated.

Fire apparatus responding to appeals for help were unable to secure adequate water for several days until the dock area had been cleared to permit approach for drafting from the bay. Fires were still burning in the warehouse and tank areas three days after the second explosion. Many burned themselves out because of the impossibility of effectively combating them, due to lack of water and/or foam equipment.

For a short time it was believed the city’s domestic water was contaminated and warnings were issued not to use it, and fresh water was brought into the city by plane and truck. Restrictions were soon lifted, however, when it was found the water was potable.

Nature of Injuries Analyzed

Four days after the initial eruption, the Red Cross medical disaster directors issued a report on the nature of the injuries from the explosions.

This indicates that those in buildings at the time of the major explosion, in the nitrate-laden Grandcamp, suffered mostly from glass and splinter wounds and those in the open, from compound injuries caused by the blast effects.

The report stated that head injuries caused many deaths, that burns were few,* that there were many ruptured eardrums.

The report said that it had been found in the emergency work on the scene that the military program of catastrophe management as developed during the war was very adaptable to civilian disasters.

Waterfronts Guarded

The fate of Texas City immediately resulted in a check up and an overhauling of area hazards, particularly those at shipping ports, throughout the nation. It is known that huge stocks of ammunition containing amonium nitrate were left at the end of the war and that these stocks are being reprocessed and reconverted for use as fertilizers.

Explosive experts attending the meeting of the American Chemical Society at Atlantic City the week of April 13 pointed out that until the processing of the nitrates is completed, the danger of explosions will remain a real one.

Loss May Reach $125,000,000

The Texas City disaster may result in the second greatest insured loss in the history of underwriting. Although accurate estimates of the Texas City damage will not be available for some time, it is reported the minimum total insurance loss under property damage forms is expected to reach $50,000,000, according to Donald B. Sherwood, general adjuster of the National Board of Fire Underwriters. He reports that 10,000 claims are expected to be filed. He places industrial loss at $35,000,000 and explosion claims at 7,500, amounting to about $4,000,000. The number of automobiles destroyed was set at 1,000 to 1,500, for a total loss of about $500,000. Claims outside of Texas City will be small, it is said.

*This statement no doubt refers to the number of burns in relation to the vast number of injuries. Medical and press accounts, however, stress the burned condition of many bodies.

To these estimates must be added the considerable sums that will be paid on life insutance and accident and injury policies, and in workmen’s compensation. Marine insurance may be involved, also, in the loss of the three steamships. Life insurance payments may run as high as $1,300,000, in addition to what some companies are paying out to families of deceased employes.

The largest single loss in the history of underwriting was the 350-million-dollar property damage suffered in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The dead numbered 452 in that catastrophe.

No estimate of the Texas City uninsured loss is forthcoming at this time.

Effect on Nation’s Economy

Even as the devastated city struggled to regain a semblance of normal life, the reverberations of the tragedy reached deep into the nation’s economy. These results of the catastrophe seem certain:

Federal (and possibly state and other) rules on the shipment and handling of ammonium nitrate are certain to be overhauled and revised.

There will either be new restrictions set up to prevent the concentration of chemical and other hazardous industries and enterprises, or new safeguards will be insisted upon for present hazards.

A higher degree of cooperation and coordination between municipal fire services and both the hazardous industries and those whose duties it is to provide regulatory safety measures will eventuate.

Some chemical and petroleum refining plants will have to reschedule operations to offset losses at destroyed and damaged plants.

Grandcamp Arrived April II

The freighter Grandcamp, a former Victory ship, under French registry, arrived at Texas City about noon on April 11, according to Samuel F. Muccke, Deputy Collector of Customs at Galveston, and was docked in the “North Slip,” north of Pier “O.” Almost immediately it began taking on a cargo of nitrate in its No. 2 and No. 4 holds.

According to the ship’s manifest, which listed only items taken on before arrival at Texas City, there were in the cargo sixteen cases of small ammunition as well as tobacco, twine, a small amount of gasoline and paint. It was said that the small arms ammunition had no connection with the explosion. It had been loaded at Antwerp for Venezuela but had been overshipped and had missed port. It was to have been transferred to another vessel and was stowed between decks at the time of the fire.

On the morning of April 16 the Grandcamp is said to have been loaded with approximately 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, in addition to the beforementioned cargo. Documentary evidence placed before the Coast Guard Board of Inquiry shows that this ammonium nitrate was all shipped by rail from three points: The Iowa Ordnance Plant at Burlington, Iowa; Cornhusker Ordnance Plant at Coplan, Neb., and the Nebraska Ordnance Plant at Firestone, Neb.

The substance was packed in 6-ply paper sacks of 100-lb. capacity and was transferred from the boxcars in which it was shipped, into the vessel, by the Texas City Terminal Railway Company. At the time of the explosion a number of boxcars on the wharfs contained various amounts of the product and it is considered one of the oddities of the disaster that, following the blast, some quantities were found undamaged at varying distances from the dockside Samples of these residue were taken by government experts for analysis.

Other Freighters Nearby

Located in the “Main Slip,” south of Pier “A” about 350 feet south of the 5.5. Grandcamp on the morning of April 16, was the freighter High Flyer. Across the same slip, at Pier “B” was another freighter, the Wilson B. Keene.

The testimony of Captain R. M. Peterman of the High Flyer indicated that his ship was loaded with 961 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer compound in addition to other cargo. It was not indicated whether or not this was the same substance as that in the Grand Camp. It is not reported what the 5.5. Wilson B. Keene contained, but it is understood to have been wheat.

Captain Peterman testified that during the war the High Flyer had carried several loads of ammonium nitrate to Europe from Boston and New York without mishap. This had been packed in red bags lettered “Danger! Explosives!” He was aware that his cargo contained ammonium nitrate but he had believed it was a different compound from the wartime chemical.

Earlier testimony before the Board indicated that the markings on the fertilizer chemical being loaded in the Grandcamp and the High Flyer gave no indication that the compound was explosive.

W. H. Sanberg, vice-president of the Texas City Terminal Railway Company, who was severly injured in the explosion, testified that while between 75,000 and 80,000 tons of ammonium nitrate had been shipped out through his facilities since last year, he never knew that the material was dangerous or required special handling and had never received any instructions from the manufacturers or any government agencies for special handling.

Smoking Was Counfenanced

Evidence of a number of witnesses, including Ben Papham, Jr., second mate of the High Flyer, indicated that personnel both on the Grandcamp and the High Flyer were smoking cigarettes on the day before the blast. L. D. Boswell, foreman of a crew of nineteen longshoremen, which loaded ammonium nitrate into the Grandcamp, said that he had observed smoking on that ship. His crew closed the hatch which the ammonium nitrate was being loaded into the Grandcamp at 5:00 P.M. Tuesday, the day before the explosion, and reopened it at 8:00 A.M., about an hour and a quarter before the blast, to resume the job of loading.

Ammonium Nitrate Unpredictable

That the ammonium nitrate cargo of the freighter Grandcamp was the source of the explosion and that this, in turn, was accelerated by the heat of the fire in the cargo has been determined. But just what caused the chemical fertilizer to detonate is what is at present puzzling the experts.

There is plenty of evidence to attest the explosibility of ammonium nitrate, but its wide use and application, particularly during World War II, without serious results, and the general looseness in regulations for its handling, storage and transportation, undoubtedly had lulled even those most familiar with its potentialities for evil to a false sense of security.

Pending tests of the particular compound that caused the tragedy, under conditions that approximate the same reaction of heat upon this particular grade of nitrate cargo on the Grandcamp, it is idle to advance any theory of the cause. However, it is in order to say a few words about ammonium nitrate in general.

It is understood that it was the intention to transform the Grandcamp’s cargo of ammonium nitrate into fertilizer and it is said that the nitrate which was in a finely granulated form, had been treated with some petroleum product to prevent its caking.

One method of so transforming ammonium nitrate is to dilute it with ammonium sulphate. But the mixing on a fifty-fifty basis would have to be done carefully and thoroughly. Because this was not done carefully and thoroughly at Oppau, Germany, in 1921, some 4,500 tons were deflagrated with a loss of 430 lives.

Note this term “deflagrated,” which is something different from “exploded.” A deflagration is an incomplete explosion which does not yield the usual nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water and carbon monoxide. At Oppau, the ammonium nitrate had been mixed with ammonium sulphate and the mixture had been stored in an enormous bin. Ammonium nitrate cakes easily, so that the mixture formed hard, large masses, which workmen blasted into smaller masses with a pound or two of explosive. Some 30,000 “shots” had thus been fired without mishap. One day a worker overcharged a bore hole—so the theory ran—and the improperly prepared mixture was set off. There was a deflagration of the entire 4,500 tons.

Many explosives are compounds of nitrogen, and so are fertilizers, For this reason, a chemical plant that makes explosives is also able to make fertilizers. In addition to nitrogen, most explosives also contain carbon and hydrogen. TNT, nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose (guncotton) are examples.

It is difficult to make nitrogen combine with any other element. Even when such combinations are achieved, they are usually unstable in that the nitrogen tries to break away. It is this instability that makes it possible to produce an explosive at all. Give TNT, ammonium nitrate or any other high explosive, the proper “kick” and the nitrogen-containing molecules fly off violently and generate much gas and heat. In contrast to ammonium nitrate, some compounds such as lead or mercury oxide or nitrogen trichloride or nitrogen tri-iodide are so sensitive that even friction is enough to set them off.

Ammonium nitrate is so stable that it is easy to forget its potentialities as an explosive. Because it is so insensitive, chemists have used it as an ingredient in high explosives.*

The Initial Explosion

First evidence of fire in cargo of the Grandcamp was discovered by one of the crew’s nineteen longshoremen. A short time after opening No. 4 hatch about 8:00 A. M. on the 16th, one of the longshoremen reported he smelled something burning. A companion investigated and said it was coming from No. 4 bold and he asked for some water. According to testimony, while they were preparing to put water on the fire someone ordered the longshoremen not to use water because “it would damage the cargo.” The longshoremen’s foreman told the Hoard that he was ordered to close the hatch and his men moved up on deck. He said that be in turn later told his group of men to leave the vessel after he had seen the hatch raise up. He said this latter event occurred after he had observed some of the French ship’s crew members covering the ventilator to the hold.

Further evidence on the location and extent of the fire was given by W. K. Thompson, a member of Mr. Boswell’s crew. He helped uncover the hatch of No. 4 hold and descended into the hold at 8:10 A. M. to discover clouds of smoke. He and other longshoremen started to climb out of the hold but decided to determine the extent of the fire. “I climbed over into the inshore side of the ship and looked down.” Thompson said, “I saw flames burning below

“Ammonium Nitrate. Ammonium nitrate is produced by passing ammonia into nitric acid. It is more deliquescent than the sodium salt. Ammonium nitrate is more hazardous than either potassium or sodium nitrate as, in addition to its hazard from contact with organic or oxidizable matter, it decomposes at a moderately low temperature. When heated to 210 deg. C., it breaks up into water and nitrous oxide, which is a supporter of combustion. In contact with glowing carbonaceous matter, it at once reacts, often so violently for the reaction to be considered an explosion. It is very soluble in water. Its fusing point is 152 deg. C. Whether or not ammonium nitrate is to be considered an explosive is a matter that has aroused some controversy it being considered by some that, when confined and compressed, and a sufficiently powerful detonator used it must be taken to be an explosive. The explosion so initiated, however, does not propagate readily. Ammonium nitrate, however, is an ingredient in explosives.—From CHEMISTRY IN RELATION TO FIRE RISK AND FIRE EXTINCTION.—A. M. Cameron. the nitrate. I couldn’t tell how much fire was in the hold. We went down to the bottom and removed three or four sacks of nitrate. The flames burst out when the sacks were removed.”

Thompson said he took two fire extinguishers and two small jugs of water into the hold and the men attempted to put out the fire with these. “They had no effect whatsoever,” he said. “Boswell called down and ordered us topside. We went up and after all eight of us were out of the hold, we covered the hatch. Boswell told us to get out of the ship.”

Testimony of the six or seven surviving crew members of the Grandcamp indicate that an effort was made to use live steam on the fire but there is no evidence of any concerted attempt to use the ship’s fire mains. This may have been due to extensive mechanical repairs which some reports indicate were being made at the time. Whatever the conditions, the fact is clear that from approximately 8:30 to 9:17 A. M. the time of the explosion, the fire was allowed to increase in intensity below decks, except for the efforts of the Texas City Fire Department, which were so tragically interrupted.

Edward Westman of Galveston, representing the owners of the Grandcamp, testified that he had been notified at 8:30 A. M. April 16, that a fire had broken out on the ship. He said as soon as he was notified he called the Bay Towing Company and asked them to rush two firefighting tugboats to the scene.

Just who summoned the local fire department has not been disclosed, but twenty-seven men responded, with four pieces of equipment. They were joined by almost as many other firefighters from the Republic plant’s fire brigade. This force, undaunted, and further aided by dockworkers and other helpers, were getting lines into operation aboard ship, as well as from the dock, when the blast came and the ship disintegrated.

According to Mayor George W. Frazer of Galveston, that city sent its fireboat, the City of Galveston to Texas City “when the French ship Grandcamp was ablaze—this was before the explosions began.” It was providential that the fireboat with its Galveston firemen was not yet operating on the ship when the blow came.

Meanwhile, reports of the fire, and the growing column of black smoke arising from the vessel, bad attracted a large crowd of spectators. Practically all of these persons, as well as all the firefighters, and most of the workers in the immediate blast area were killed or seriously injured. Some of the injured doubtless died when they were caught, hours later, in the explosion of the freighter High Flyer:

Destructiveness of First Blast

The incredible force of the explosion, as the Grandcamp disintegrated, is attested by the destruction wrought in the area. Photographs of the column of smoke arising from the explosion liken it to the Bikini atom blast. Ex G-I’s who underwent the worst of what the Germans had to give, said they had never seen anything as destructive.

The detonation was felt 100 miles distant. In Galveston, across the bay people fled their homes believing an earthquake had struck. Windows were shattered, houses shaken and plaster fell as far as twenty miles away. The concussion knocked a small airplane out of the sky. killing its two occupants. Dockside structure disappeared. Fragments of the ship—some weighing several tons each, were scattered hundreds of feet distant. Smaller portions of hull and superstructures were thrown as far as two miles. Some of these fragments tore automobiles apart, ripped up long deep gashes in yards and pavements, and even pierced quarter-inch steel plate.

A 75-ft. steel barge, moored near the Grandcamp, was lifted and thrown ashore, intermingled with parts of the Grandcamp; on top of the whole, was the shredded remains of one of the fire department’s pumpers. Unburned portions of the ship’s cargo were scattered considerable distances.

Some members of the crew of the freighter High Flyer berthed two docks away, watching the fire on the Grandcamp, were killed by the concussion.

Monsanto Takes Full Force of the Blast

The war-plant of the Monsanto Chemical Company, about 500 feet from the pier, felt the full impact of the thrust by air concussion and flying fragments, by ground wave, and by ground swell of the waters from the bay which inundated the low land upon which the plant was built.

Unconfirmed early reports attribute the concurrent explosions in the Monsanto plant to the fact that it had been built on sixty-foot piling and that styrene manufacture requires close temperature control and pressures of 1,000 PSI. The shocks and ground swell of the Grandcamp explosion it was said caused the Monsanto plant to vibrate violently upon its foundation, which in turn ruptured fittings carrying pressures from one operating unit to another, resulting in the explosions and fires, causing additional casualties among the reported 450 workers at the plant.

The reports of Monsanto workers who survived the initial explosion agreed that the ground appeared to wave immediately, following the concussion. Whatever the cause, about two minutes after the initial shock, fires broke out at different locations in the Monsanto installations, spreading with increasing fury, upopposed by firefighters.

Although the large fractionating towers and certain other distillation equipment withstood the impact of the blast, they were so badly damaged it is said they will require replacement. The company’s office building, formerly a large sugar warehouse, the large cafeteria, warehouses and other structures, were either completely wrecked, or extensively damaged. The plant’s pump house was reported crushed and the water system ruptured, preventing the fire-fighters from using foam in their later efforts to extinguish remaining fires. Fires were still burning in the fractionating towers and in a benzol storage tank on the fourth morning following the explosion. Although several propane tanks survived the shock, most of the plant’s piping, largely steel, was ruined by the blasts and fire.

Almost half of the Monsanto’s employes at work at the time of the explosion were dead or missing and the balance were injured, many critically. Some workmen of a construction company engaged in the area were also killed or injured.

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(Photo by U. S. Coast Guard.)

Texas Explosions

(Continued from page 301)

One of the first of the several ensuing oil storage fires started in a large tank on the farm of the Atlantic Refinery, about 4,000 feet from the dockside. These were doubtless caused by flying fragments.

Second Ship Blows Up

At about 1:10 A. M. the following morning, April 17th, the freighter High Flyer, also partially loaded with a cargo of ammonium nitrate, exploded. This blast tore apart the freighter Wilson B. Keene, moored nearby, leaving only a portion of its stern showing. The High Flyer, like the Grandcamp, was blown to bits.

Fire is known to have preceded the explosion on the High Flyer but unlike the Grandcamp, no firemen were aboard the ship or nearby, at the time of the blast. Just how many stevedores, dockworkers, rescuers and others died or were injured in this second explosion may never be known. That there were not more casualties is credited by some to W. H. Sanberg, Terminal Railway vice-president, who correctly interpreted conditions on the burning High Flyer and shouted repeated warnings for those nearby to clear out and take cover.

It was disclosed by the evidence of survivors that the same procedure was followed on the High Flyer as that aboard the Grandcamp—the hatches of holds loaded with hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate were battened down: nor was any attempt made to extinguish the fire, started, it is believed, by the explosion of the Grandcamp.

Franklin R. Woodyard. chief mate of the wheat-laden ship W ilson B. Keene, testified that when he was notified of the fire on the Grandcamp ite ordered the hatches of his ship covered and sent the longshoremen ashore. He called his chief engineer to inquire how long it would take to get the ship under way and was told by him, about an hour. He said it appeared that the Grandcamp fire was being brought under control, so they delayed moving. After the Grandcamp exploded he fought his way to the deck and found the concussion had pushed his ship about twenty feet from the dock. He ordered his men to bring the Keene closer to the pier so they could get ashore.

Confusing reports were issued concerning the efforts, or lack of them, to move both the High Flyer and the Keene. The Board’s investigations, however, disclose that tugboats did make an unsuccessful try at towing out the High Flyer, and only barely escaped disaster in so doing.

Second Blast Involves Additional Oil Tanks

The explosion of the High Flyer was only slightly less destructive than that on the Grandcamp. Oil tanks of the Humble, Republic, Stone and Sid Richardson Oil Companies were involved as a result of this blast. It is reported Humble lost six full tanks of crude oil and one of bunker. The Richardson tanks were mostly empty at the time. Republic Oil is said to have lost several 80,000 barrel tanks and contents, and the Stone Company suffered loss of smaller storage units.

An effort was made by fire fighters, almost three days after the second explosion, to control the fire in Humble’s bunker tank but, it is said, without much success. This fire started from the boil-over of a nearby burning tank. As fresh fire forces arrived from Houston, Baytown and other places, units were dispatched with such equipment as was available to extinguish the remaining fires. On several occasions early in the struggle, emergency forces contemplated using dynamite to forestall further extension of the fires.

Fire, for the most part on tank farms, continued to burn for almost six days before being extinguished or burning themselves out.

Lessons and Conclusions

Although the origin of the Texas City disaster may remain obscure, there is sufficient evidence available to warrant a number of pertinent conclusions:

1. Concentration of high-hazard industries or occupancies within an area where they are subject to actual or potential threat of explosion and/or fire, or of the chain effects of either, is inviting catastrophe.
2. Hazardous occupancies and operations must be studied not only from the viewpoint of the hazards integral to each occupancy or occupation, but from the standpoint of the mass exposure hazards within the group.
3. Where such hazards exist (group concentrated hazards)—and they are to be found in relative degree in almost every industrial city and segregation or other necessary safeguards cannot be taken, some other preventive and protective measures should be developed to meet the individual conditions. These measures are no secret. They were known and taken during World War II. The United States made millions of tons of high explosive during the war, yet such was the system of control in production and in transportation by land and sea that there was no serious mishap.
4. The catastrophe bears out what this journal has repeatedly said, that the war has left us a heritage of hazards, many of them beyond the comprehension not only of the fire service, but of learned scientists, physicists and chemists—so far as their death-dealing, property-destroying potentialities are concerned. Those charged with fire prevention and control must be more fully informed on these new hazards, and the techniques that should be employed in combating them.
5. Not only should the fire and explosion hazards of ammonium nitrate be further analyzed, but hazards related to numerous other present-day chemical “doubtfuls” and “unknowns” should likewise be studied. The scientific world may know much about the chemicals themselves, but not enough about the reaction of these chemicals when combined with other chemicals and compounds. And their knowledge, as it relates to fire and explosion hazards, should be made available to the field.
6. it is evident the method of handling, loading and transporting ammonium nitrate (and possibly other similar commodities) needs modification. Ships that carry high explosives, gasoline and the like, should be anchored or moored in some special area of a port, where there are no such installations as refineries, chemical works or large oil storages.
7. The method of marking containers of ammonium nitrate (and like “unpredictable” potential explosives) should be overhauled and revised.
8. Not only should there be stricter supervision of loading, handling, transporting ammonium nitrate and any other chemicals or compounds that may under extreme or unusual conditions create serious hazards, but there must be more rigid enforcement of regulatory safeguards, and it may well start with “NO SMOKING!”
9. There should be more education of members of the fire service and related authorities to the danger of chemical hazards. This is particularly true of the volunteer fire service.
10. Finally, it should be obvious that every community—even if it hasn’t a multiple-hazard problem—ought to have a well-prepared mutual-aid plan that will function under all normal and abnormal conditions of emergency such as arise not only from conflagration and explosion but from flood, hurricane and so on, to mobilize rescue, fire fighting, medical, law enforcement and other agencies. During the war a majority of American communities developed ‘disaster’ and ‘preparedness’ plans and programs. These should not be permitted to die but should be retained.