Selects: The Texas City Disaster of 1947

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Stuff You Should Know" - Episode: The Texas City Disaster of 1947

Release Date: December 14, 2024
Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant, and Jerry

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1. Introduction to the Texas City Disaster

The episode kicks off with Jerry introducing the topic, emphasizing its significance as "the largest industrial disaster in United States history" still remembered nearly 75 years later (01:55). The hosts set the stage for a deep dive into the catastrophic events that unfolded in Texas City in 1947, a town renowned for its petrochemical port.

Jerry [01:55]: "In fact, from what I saw, what we're going to talk about today, the main thing we're talking about today is the largest industrial disaster in United States history. Still."

2. The Birth and Growth of Texas City

Josh and Chuck delve into the origins of Texas City, highlighting its establishment in the late 1800s by Minnesota hunters who envisioned a prime shipping port due to its deep-water access (03:21). Post-World War II, Texas City burgeoned into a major petrochemical hub, housing BP's most profitable refinery globally at the time.

Josh [02:22]: "Texas City has made a name for itself as one of the premier petrochemical ports in the United States and indeed possibly the world."

3. Prelude to Disaster: The Cargo and Conditions

The disaster's roots trace back to the morning of April 16, 1947. Three Liberty ships—SS Grand Camp, SS High Flyer, and Wilson B. Keene—were docked in the port, collectively carrying vast quantities of hazardous materials, primarily ammonium nitrate fertilizer stored in 100-pound paper sacks (06:42).

Jerry [07:29]: "There were 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer... in 100-pound paper sacks, akin to the kind of sacks that you would buy like Portland cement in these days."

The hosts explain the dangers of ammonium nitrate, noting its explosive potential when combined with fuel oils or when it absorbs moisture, leading to heightened volatility (08:14).

4. The Ignition and Initial Fire

At approximately 8 AM, smoke and vapors began emanating from the Grand Camp, signaling a fire outbreak (15:38). While the exact cause remains uncertain, anecdotal accounts suggest possibilities like a discarded cigarette. Faced with the fire, Captain Charles De Gun opted to "batten down the hatches" and pump steam into the ship, a common firefighting technique of the era intended to extinguish flames without damaging the cargo (17:24).

Chuck [16:11]: "But they definitely didn't know, like, heat bad for this stuff."

However, this decision inadvertently introduced moisture, exacerbating the instability of the ammonium nitrate and setting the stage for a massive explosion.

5. The Catastrophic Explosion

By 8:30 AM, the pressure within the ship's holds had skyrocketed, forcing the hatch covers off and releasing mesmerizing colored smoke—salmon, orange, and purple—attracting hundreds of onlookers (19:03).

Jerry [19:29]: "From one of the witnesses, it was apparently salmon, orange and purple."

The explosion at 9:12 AM was monumental, registering a force comparable to a 2.7-kiloton blast—about one-fifth the size of the Hiroshima bomb (21:01). The blast leveled the city, vaporizing 113 individuals instantly and resulting in a total death toll of approximately 600, with casualties ranging between 3,500 to 5,000 (35:34).

Chuck [22:34]: "There were hundreds of onlookers. There were people that worked there. There were all 28 members of the fire department. They were all killed basically instantly."

6. The Second Explosion and Escalation

The initial blast disrupted the SS High Flyer, which also carried ammonium nitrate and an additional 2,000 tons of sulfur (26:34). Efforts to mitigate the fire were hampered by the devastated local fire department. By early morning of April 17, the High Flyer exploded, compounding the destruction and hindering rescue operations (28:31).

Chuck [28:31]: "At 1:10, and this is now on April 17, early next morning, the High Flyer exploded as well."

7. Rescue Efforts and Immediate Aftermath

The destruction obliterated the local fire department and critical infrastructure, delaying rescue operations. External aid from the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, Texas National Guard, and neighboring cities eventually arrived to assist with firefighting and rescue missions. Makeshift facilities like the high school gymnasium served as field hospitals, and Boy Scouts were mobilized to aid in the aftermath, including processing remains.

Jerry [38:47]: "The Boy Scouts were pressed into service to basically help out however they could."

8. Long-term Consequences and Regulatory Changes

The disaster prompted significant regulatory overhauls in chemical handling and storage practices both nationally and globally. Despite these measures, similar tragedies, such as the Beirut explosion in 2020, demonstrate that negligence and inadequate storage continue to pose risks.

Chuck [44:02]: "And in Beirut just last year, in August of 2020, there was another big cargo of ammonium nitrate..."

9. Memorials and Legacy

Texas City commemorates the tragedy with memorial parks, including one beneath berms where 63 unidentified victims are interred. Artifacts like a two-ton anchor and a scarred propeller from the High Flyer serve as reminders of the catastrophe (39:19).

Jerry [39:20]: "There were something like 50 plus funeral homes from 28 different cities that all participated."

10. Reflections and Community Resilience

Despite the immense loss, Texas City demonstrated remarkable resilience, rebuilding even larger than before. The episode underscores the community's strength and the enduring lessons learned from the disaster, emphasizing the importance of stringent safety protocols in preventing future tragedies.

Chuck [40:55]: "So you got anything else?"

Jerry [45:37]: "Well, if you want to know more about the Texas City disaster, you can go look that up."

Conclusion

The "Stuff You Should Know" episode on the Texas City Disaster of 1947 offers a comprehensive exploration of one of America's most devastating industrial accidents. Through engaging discussions, historical insights, and poignant reflections, Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant, and Jerry illuminate the complex interplay of human error, regulatory shortcomings, and sheer force of nature that culminated in the tragedy. The episode serves as both a memorial to those lost and a cautionary tale on the imperative of safety in industrial operations.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jerry [01:55]: "the largest industrial disaster in United States history. Still."
• Jerry [07:29]: "There were 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer... in 100-pound paper sacks..."
• Chuck [16:11]: "But they definitely didn't know, like, heat bad for this stuff."
• Jerry [19:29]: "From one of the witnesses, it was apparently salmon, orange and purple."
• Chuck [28:31]: "At 1:10, and this is now on April 17, early next morning, the High Flyer exploded as well."
• Jerry [38:47]: "The Boy Scouts were pressed into service to basically help out however they could."
• Chuck [44:02]: "And in Beirut just last year, in August of 2020, there was another big cargo of ammonium nitrate..."
• Jerry [45:37]: "Well, if you want to know more about the Texas City disaster, you can go look that up."

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Additional Resources:

For listeners seeking a deeper understanding of the Texas City Disaster, the hosts recommend:

• Cheryl Lauersdorf Ross's article in the Journal of Houston History.
• FireEngineering.com for a detailed overview.
• Local 1259, Texas City Firefighters Union for comprehensive historical accounts.

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This summary is intended to provide a thorough overview of the podcast episode for those who have not listened to it. For the full experience, including the hosts' nuanced discussions and additional anecdotes, tuning into the episode is highly recommended.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

Hey everyone, it's me, Josh. And for this week's Sysk Selects, I've chosen our episode on the Texas City disaster. In Texas, they do everything bigger, including industrial disasters. In this episode From March of 2021, we cover one of the biggest explosions in American history, made up of not one, but two huge blasts that leveled the refinery port town of Texas City. I hope you find this one as riveting as we did.

[Chuck Bryant]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Jerry]

He hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

I was about to say Natural Disaster Edition, but Unnatural Disaster Edition.

[Jerry]

Industrial disaster is what they call these.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Human caused.

[Jerry]

In fact, from what I saw, what we're going to talk about today, the main thing we're talking about today is the largest industrial disaster in United States history. Still.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, still, huh?

[Jerry]

Yes. What? 70, almost 75 years on, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sad. This is a big one.

[Jerry]

Yeah, everything about this was really big, but in basically all the wrong ways.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Jerry]

We're gonna talk today about a disaster called the Texas City Explosion. And sadly, you might say which one, because there's been multiple massive explosions in Texas. One of the reasons why is because Texas City has made a name for itself as one of the premier petrochemical ports in the United States and indeed possibly the world. I think it was up Until World War II, it was like the fourth largest port in Texas. But I think since World War II, it's grown even more. And I know for a little while there BP had a refinery that was its most profitable oil refinery in the world, which is really saying something I mean, that's a big deal. BP is an enormous company with multiple refineries. So, you know, for the biggest one, the most profitable one to be in Texas City, it kind of put Texas City on the map in some circles.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So Texas City is above the Gulf of Mexico and like you said, it's a port town founded in the late 1800s by some Minnesota hunters. And they said, you know what, I think we can set up shop here. I think we can dig up a canal, set up a rail line. Yeah, we've got some really good deep water and we could be a good shipping port.

[Jerry]

I want to know how they like, what conversation led to that, like what hunting trip ends up in you basically building a port town in a city that's about as far away from your home as you can get in the same country.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, there were some real go getters, I guess.

[Jerry]

Yeah, I guess so. They couldn't just relax and kill animals.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Oh, God. So that's what happened to Texas City. I mean, that's how it was kind of founded. And it was a like, think refineries, think warehouses and chemical plants. World War II comes around and the military of course, says, well, we'll be sort of controlling this area for a while because it's a pretty valuable port for us and we're going to ship munitions in and out of here. World War II comes and goes. And then after the war, about a year and a half after the war, it is run by civilians again. And let's just say that it was a little more of a relaxed scene than it was when the military was running the show.

[Jerry]

Yeah, the military ran it like a tight ship, basically. And yeah, there's just a big difference between when the military is running a port and when a port's run by just a whole bunch of different private companies. You know what I'm saying?

[Chuck Bryant]

Minnesota hunters.

[Jerry]

Exactly. So that's not to say it was just some loosey goosey place or anything like that, but just comparatively speaking. And one of the other things that Texas City had going against it on the morning of April 16, 1947, is that there weren't really a lot of standards and regulations for handling chemicals. And then we didn't have an enormous grasp on just how chemicals worked at that time. And so all of these things kind of came together. This kind of slightly lax oversight and just kind of lack much more relaxed attitude toward cargo and then a lack of awareness about just what kind of dangers different cargoes pose just kind of set things up. To take a bad turn.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So on the morning of April 16, there were three ships docked in the port. There was most notably the SS Grand Camp, which was. It was a military ship at one point, but I think we gave it to France as like, hey, sorry, Europe is kind of destroyed. Why don't you take this ship and just use it for whatever you want to do? And it was converted to a cargo ship, which it was on the day of April 16, and it was beside the SS High Flyer. And that was beside the third one named after somebody. What was that one?

[Jerry]

The Robert Keane or the William Keane?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wait a minute. Which one was it?

[Jerry]

Well, it was the Wilson B. Keene. Even better.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. The Billy Keene as they called it.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And I believe all three of those were Liberty ships, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they were World War II ships. And they were, I think the SS High Flyer was being fixed at the time, but was still loaded down with stuff as was the Grand Camp. And we'll sort of detail what was in the cargo because it's all very, very key.

[Jerry]

Yeah, it's really important. So for the five days leading up to April 16, Steve Doers, I think that's how you say it, but basically dockhands, I don't know why you wouldn't just say dockhands, you know, but stevedores, man. I hope I'm saying that correctly, Chuck. They had loaded up the Grand Camp with 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. And these were in 100 pound paper sacks, akin to the kind of sacks that you would buy like Portland cement in these days. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

There were some other cargo, sisal, twine, peanuts. There was some machinery, there was some cotton. There was 16 cases of ammunition, I think, like for small arms ammunition, but for the most part it was a lot of ammonium nitrate. And the same went for the SS High Flyer too, which as you said, was in the next birth. It was loaded with a thousand tons of ammonium nitrate and then also very crucially, 2,000 tons of sulfur. And all of these were also in those same hundred pound paper bags. So at the time, like I was saying, people didn't realize, like this is, this is a big deal, that there was that much ammonium nitrate just sitting around in this port at that time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's a crystal, like solid, it's white. A lot of times it's used for nitrogen, for agricultural fertilizer, but if you combine it with fuel oils, it can be very explosive and actually used for that for mining and construction and Stuff like that. But it's not like if you tap the side of the bag, it's going to explode. It's pretty safe as long as it's all in the up and up and it's being stored properly. But if it starts to absorb moisture, then it's sort of like Portland cement. Again, it's just going to harden to a block, and then if that thing is in a solid block, it's going to be just a little bit more volatile and a little bit more dangerous if ignited.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And I mean, it's not even considered flammable as far as I know. And certainly in 1947, it wasn't considered flammable because if you walked up to some of this ammonium nitrate, these pellets, and just held a lighter to them, they wouldn't catch fire. That's not really what they do. What they do is they oxidize things. They basically create free radicals like we talked about in the Free Radical episode, which sets off like a chain reaction. And because they oxidize, they concentrate and condense and produce basically oxygen where it wasn't otherwise present. When, when that, that is combined with the fire, it makes a big time fire. So that's bad enough, right? Like if you set them off, like, it'll. It'll combust or it'll help something else combust more efficiently and more. More at a higher temperature. But the problem, the big problem with ammonium nitrate is there is a point where it can reach a high enough heat that it itself decays and degrades. And when that happens, it splits into two gases, nitrous oxide and water vapor, which you're like, well, that's great. You just get super duper high off of one and the other one just makes you a little moist. Maybe so. Maybe so in small enough amounts. But when this happens in a large enough amount, especially when this ammonium nitrate is in one big melted block, the chain reaction can happen much more efficiently. And when those gases are produced, when the thing decays and separates, they expand really quickly and that produces an explosion. And the forces, the energy that's released from an explosion of ammonium nitrate decaying and converting into nitrous oxide and water vapor is monumental. Like, compared to atomic bomb blasts, basically, if you have enough of it, say 2300 tons and a thousand tons and a couple of ships just sitting in port.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, that's a great place for a cliffhanger, I think.

[Jerry]

I think so, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we'll be right back after this. Hey, everyone, we're brought to you today by the Capital One Quicksilver card. Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase everywhere. Plus, there's no limit to the amount of cash back you can earn and rewards don't expire for the life of the account. It's that simple. The Capital One Quicksilver Card what's in your wallet? Termsupplyccapital1.com for details attention parents and grandparents.

[Josh Clark]

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[Jerry]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they definitely didn't know, like, heat bad for this stuff.

[Jerry]

Yeah. They said, you owe me two bucks from lunch yesterday. That's what they said when they were loading this up.

[Chuck Bryant]

So around 8am in the morning, these workers there started noticing that there was smoke and vapors coming out of the ship. So there was some kind of a fire going on. No one knew how it started or what happened. There are some people anecdotally that say it was a cigarette, which it could have been. That wasn't in the official report, which also wouldn't be surprising.

[Jerry]

Well, what I saw, I saw later on, Chuck, that the fact that these things were in those paper sacks, that if they were heating up, they were just going to continue to heat up, being packed tightly in the hold of this unventilated ship. They were just going to get warmer and warmer. And it's possible that the ammonium nitrate caused the paper sack to combust, catch fire, spread to other paper sacks. And then you had a positive feedback loop where it just kept getting. The fire kept getting bigger and bigger and crucially, very important, hotter and hotter.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So the captain sees this happening. There are people kind of pouring in and looking around at what's going on. The captain says, batten down these hatches, pull these tarps over them and start pumping steam in there, which apparently was a method at the time to put out a fire on a ship when you didn't want to ruin the cargo, as opposed to just blasting it with a fire hose, which would cause all this stuff to just brick up like Portland cement. He starts pumping steam in there. And that just started. Everyone knows steam is going to heat Stuff up. So that just started and the moisture made a bad situation a lot worse really quickly.

[Jerry]

Yeah. I get the impression that had the captain, same was Captain Charles De Gun. Had he made the decision to just go ahead and let the cargo be ruined and have the fire put out with fire hoses, this all might never have happened. But it was. I mean, I understand where he was coming from. He didn't want to ruin the cargo if he didn't have to, because steaming out a fire aboard a ship was an accepted firefighting technique. It works. And it could conceivably save a lot of the cargo. So it's not like he just made this ridiculous, stupid mistake. It's just in hindsight, it was probably the decision that led to this catastrophe.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, I think more than anything, it's like you said, it was the time when there was not much regulation and sort of in the dawning of the chemical age, people just didn't know.

[Jerry]

Right. And plus, also at the time, Texas City had a volunteer fire department, which I would guess wouldn't have quite as much jurisdiction and could be told by a captain like, no, no, no, just go away. Like, I'm gonna handle this myself, rather than being like, no, we're going to put the fire right on your ship.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's a good point. So the steam is making things worse. It pumped into the holds and everything's heating up, everything's getting moist. And like we said, moisture is no good for this stuff, and it did. It started to convert to these solid masses. And you know, there's going to be gas releasing, and it's building up all this pressure because they had battened down the hatches and covered them with tarps. And it so much so that it blew these hatch covers off at about 8:30 in the morning.

[Jerry]

That's crazy, man. Just that alone would have been spectacular, and I'm sure it was. But when those hatches blew off, all the smoke that had been kind of stuck in the hole inside the ship started billowing out. And the thing apparently, about ammonium nitrate burning is it produces really kind of mesmerizing colored smoke. From one of the witnesses, it was apparently salmon, orange and purple.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Jerry]

And so the smoke coming out of it started to attract people, like onlookers who were like, what's going on? I want to go see this giant, weird fire that's going on down at the port. And something like 300 people, including entire families, kids from the local school came over. All sorts of people just kind of Stopped what they were doing and came to watch this weird fire at the port. And apparently KGBC out of Galveston, which is just 10 miles down the coast out in the Gulf of Mexico. They were warning people to stay away, but apparently that just alerted more people that there was something going on. Who went down to go check it out themselves.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So they knew that there was a big problem at this point. They did call the firefighters in and the tugboat to maybe try and get that thing out of there. And at this point, like you said, the heat was just so great that even a fire hose isn't going to do much. It's kind of just vaporizing when it hits it. Yeah, that's crazy because of the massive amounts of heat. And then, you know, this whole thing started at 8, at 8:30 is when the hatches blew. And then at 9:12 the thing exploded. And we're going to kind of list through a pretty horrifying list of impacts from like distances. Like a seismography in Denver, Colorado picked up this explosion.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And this is again in the southernmost part of Texas, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like they felt it in Louisiana, you know, like 3,000 foot firebombs and cargo flying up in the air.

[Jerry]

So. Yeah, the enormous amount of energy that I was talking about that was released by those 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, in retrospect, I think it's been the. I saw compared to a 2.7 kiloton blast.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Jerry]

Which would put this blast of this ship blowing up at somewhere on the order of about one third. No, I'm sorry, one fifth of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb, which just completely leveled that city. This was about a fifth that size. So it was still a really substantial, enormous blast. And one of the first effects it had is that it blew this Liberty ship, this huge World War II era cargo ship, a couple thousand feet into the air in multiple pieces to just shower out downward as hot metal shrapnel onto the surrounding city. And that's not accounting for the shrapnel that immediately blew outward as those gases expand, expanded right into all of those onlookers and the people who are fighting the fire around the port.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there was, they had a couple of two ton anchors. One of those went about a mile and a half away in the air. Like we said, you could feel it in Louisiana. There was a Monsanto and a Union Carbide, two different chemical plants kind of right beside it. They were just flattened basically, just not even there anymore.

[Jerry]

Yeah, I saw that one of the warehouses, Warehouse Zero at The port, which was, I think, the one that was closest to the ship. This historian from Houston, I think, said that it just disappeared. Like it was just gone. Like it wasn't there any longer. Like, the word disintegrate works in a lot of the instances when you're describing what happened to a lot of the structures and people who were around this blast.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, yeah, I mean, that's the obvious thing. You know, there were hundreds of onlookers. There were people that worked there. There were all 28 members of the fire department. They were all killed basically instantly. Anyone within that zone was killed instantly. Some people, like you said, just not even able to recover enough body parts to identify humans at that point.

[Jerry]

Yeah, that proved to be a real problem. So, like, first of all, the fact that the entire fire department, apparently one. There was one survivor from the fire department, but he was out of town at the time. That's why he survived. But the whole fire department and all of their equipment was immediately wiped out. One of the problems was with an explosion like this in a place like this, is that it ruptures lines and pipes and all of those petrochemicals that are being refined suddenly catch fire. So now you have these out of control fires in the buildings and structures that are left standing, and you no longer have a fire department or any fire equipment to put it out for a little while. So the immediate impact outside of the blast was also the fires that were lit just right after this, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I mean, you've got, you know, you've got the metal shrapnel, but then you've also. Remember there were peanuts and twine and cotton and all this stuff. So that's. These are like fireballs being launched basically starting fires all over the place. It wasn't just in the immediate area. And like you said, because the fire department was then out of commission, that's real trouble.

[Jerry]

Yeah. So it took a little while for more aid to show up. But apparently this explosion was so bad and the catastrophe was so great. The Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, Texas National Guard, and then firefighters from surrounding cities all came out to help.

[Chuck Bryant]

Man.

[Jerry]

And this wasn't just like putting this chemical fire out, but also like trying to, you know, rescue people from rubble. Like, there's really a lot that we could sit here and say, but if you have a computer in front of you, like, just look up pictures from the Texas city explosion of 1946, it's just unreal. What happened to, like, enormous steel buildings just turned into, like twisted metal. And this is like, you know, the middle of a workday. So there were people trapped all over the place in this debris. So there was a huge rescue operation that had to start, but it was delayed because most of the people who were tasked with that kind of thing had all been killed in the initial blast.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, so remember earlier we said that there were three ships there. This one blows up, and obviously, you know, it's a full on, like 911 scene at this point with just how chaotic it is, people are not noticing that right next door, the SS High Flyer also, remember, was loaded with this stuff and also with sulfur, which makes it become unstable. And this thing had been unlodged. I mean, I'm surprised. It's just the integrity of these ships is the only reason that those weren't just blown to bits too. Like, it was kind of right next to it and it was still intact, at least. And it was blown from its mooring zone and drifted over and kind of attached itself to the Wilson Be Keen, which was again in the slip next to it. And I think there were some crew members aboard in there that. That I guess were just protected by that thick steel, right?

[Jerry]

Yeah, from what I understand.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they were kind of still doing.

[Jerry]

Their thing for a little while. And they were finally. Because the High Flyer caught fire as well. They were finally forced out by the smoke. Because this is some noxious smoke. This isn't. I mean, this isn't just like wood burning smoke. This is some really bad chemical smoke that can mess you up. It's crazy that these sailors stayed aboard for an hour, but they're finally forced off a ship. But they tell people like, hey, this is on fire. Everybody's like, have you seen the other problems we have over here? And the fire department just got basically vaporized. So the fire was allowed to continue on the High Flyer for hours, hours and hours. Like, that blast happened at 9:12am and it wasn't until the afternoon that somebody else rediscovered the fire aboard the High Flyer and started to kind of like raise the alarm about this. Still, this is such a chaotic scene that there wasn't anything immediately done about it. And it wasn't until 11pm that they're finally like, oh, this is a really. This is a bad jam. Because not only do we have a thousand tons, tons of ammonium nitrate aboard the High Flyer, there's that sulfur you mentioned, Chuck. And like you said, it makes it even more unstable in that, you know, how ammonium nitrate oxidizes things. Sulfur is like food to that stuff. It oxidizes sulfur. It's just like piling on this oxidizing fuel to make the blast even more energetic. So it would be a really big problem if the high fire blew up. So they brought in some tugboats and a fire boat, I think, from Galveston and started to try to take it out of the berth to tug it out to sea to let it, like, burn out or blow up or whatever it was going to do. But I guess it was stuck so fast that they couldn't get it out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, I guess this thing was not, I guess, just sort of wedged in there from that first explosion. And I think they worked on it for a couple of hours. They started at about 11pm and then it looks like by 1am they had stopped that process. And at 1:10, and this is now on April 17, early next morning, the High Flyer exploded as well. And this was even more violent. The only. I mean, it's not a saving grace at all because everything was already leveled. But the only reason it didn't cause more death and more destruction, sadly, is because everything was already destroyed and most people were already dead.

[Jerry]

Yeah. And plus also, they knew enough by this time that they needed to clear the area, that there wasn't anything they could do. So everybody who was working in the rescue operation was told to leave. So I don't know if there were any more deaths from the High Flyer blowing up, but the problem was is that any fires that might have been put out were relit, and other structures that may have been spared from the initial blast were now leveled or caught fire or both. So it was a big problem that the High Flyer blew up as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think it sunk the Wilson Keane, too, didn't it?

[Jerry]

It did. It sunk it. And it was. It was. Yeah. I can only imagine, too, also, if you survived that first one, to have another blast like that, even one you were away from and you knew was coming coming, would just do something to the nerves that would be really difficult to recover from.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Jerry]

You want to take a break?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we'll take a little break and we'll talk about sort of the results of the devastation and a couple of other incidents right after this.

[Jerry]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

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[Jerry]

Okay, so Chuck, one thing that we didn't say was that the initial explosion by the Grand Camp created like a 15 foot tidal wave that washed inland and people died almost in creative ways in this disaster. And one of those ways was those petrochemicals. I think there was a molasses refinery that started to get mixed in that kept the petrochemicals burning in the water when it mixed with them. When this tidal wave blew out, when it blew in, I'm sorry, it was on fire. So it actually caught people on fire. It caught people on fire on the way back out to sea. And people who'd survived the initial blast were actually swept out and drowned from this tube. There were people who died in airplanes that had come around to kind of circle the area and were blown out of the sky. There were people who died in buildings that collapsed. There were people who died from shrapnel falling out of the sky and killing them even though they were miles away. Like there was so much death and destruction that it's really difficult to get across. What happened to this poor little port city that hadn't done anything to anybody that just suddenly blew up?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. In the end, the official death toll was close to 600, 581 people, 113 of which were just vaporized. No trace was ever found of 113 people. Casualties up to 5,000. The numbers kind of vary, but anywhere from 3,500 to 5,000. And, you know, Texas City was not a very big place. It was about 16,000 strong. So this was just devastating, devastating to the city and to the region. It took about a week to put out all these fires and I think a full month plus to recover whatever bodies they could recover at that point.

[Jerry]

Yeah, the final body wasn't found until mid May. There were people who were never, like you said, accounted for. There were the converse of that was true too. There were parts of people that were never identified. And one of the accounts that I read was, like I was saying, was written by, I think, a University of Houston historian named Cheryl Lauersdorf Ross in the Journal Houston history. But she recounts somebody mentioning a woman who was trying to identify her husband who is lost in the disaster. And she had to sort through hands. They had a collection of hands that this woman was trying to figure out which one belonged to her husband. And, like, that's just nuts to hear, but if you can even begin to put yourself into that woman's shoes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The reality of that.

[Jerry]

Yes. Of being in that room, of, like, looking at different hands, and then also not just the horror of that, of, like, having to look through body parts that may or may not be her husband's, but then the self doubt, like, is that my husband's hand? Like, I don't remember what it looked like. You know, like that just your mind messing with you on top of the horrific experience that you're already undergoing. But she was one of many, because something like 61 people, I believe, were interred without being identified. But their remains were kind of assembled and. And put together in a memorial service that was attended by something like thousands of people. I believe so, Chuck. So if there was 16,000 people and that many people were hurt or killed by this blast, you can imagine how quickly this little town was overwhelmed with all these casualties. And so they were getting people, like, every which way, trucking them over to Galveston, like, getting them wherever they could, whatever hospital they could find. But very quickly, the high school gym was taken over to serve as a field hospital. And then shortly after that, the morgue. And one of the stories that stuck out to me was the Boy Scouts were pressed into service to basically help out however they could. And these poor little, like, teenage and preteen Scouts are, like, working in this makeshift morgue in their high school gym. Like, imagine the impression that had on them the rest of their life, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Jeez.

[Jerry]

I know. Isn't that crazy? Like, every aspect of this story is just nuts.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's very sad. Yeah. And of course, the financial loss was huge. About $100 million in property loss, 500 million in lost petroleum products, and that's about 700 million and 3.5 billion in today dollars. I think there is sort of buried beneath the berms, there is a memorial park where 63 unidentified victims are buried.

[Jerry]

Yeah, that's what I was talking about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And there's that anchor that we talked about. I don't know if it was the one that actually blew the mile and a half away, but at least one of the anchors is a monument at the park, along with a scarred propeller from the Highflyer at the entrance to the Port there at Texas City.

[Jerry]

Yeah. So that funeral procession that they had, that attracted, I think, something like 5,000 mourners was a real, like, community effort. There were something like 50 plus funeral homes from 28 different cities that all participated. And each of these 63 unidentified people, where there were remains, I should say, were put in their own individual caskets and buried in the memorial park, which is still, you know, there. That park is still there with the anchor and everything. But it was. It still. It's such an enormous, weird catastrophe and just such a devastating thing, especially looking back 70 years to read about. But when you do read about it, if you can just kind of put yourself in mind of what that was like, of trying to recover from that, it's astounding that Texas City did recover. A lot of people moved and just said, not only do I think the city's never going to come back from this, I don't know if I can come back from this. But the city actually did come back and they did build back, from what I understand, even bigger than before, which is how that BP refinery that ended up blowing up, that became the most profitable in BP's entire company because the city built back even better than before.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's great.

[Jerry]

It is great.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, not great that it exploded again in 2005, obviously, but great that they had to stick to it and it's to come back as a city. So obviously following something like this, there's going to be a lot more regulation going on. The US Is going to step up federally and say, hey, wait a minute, we really need to take a look at how we're handling these chemicals, how we're storing these things, how we're shipping these things. A lot of changes were made here and around the world. But it's not to say that that completely prevented this from happening again. Because in Beirut just last year, In August of 2020, there was another big cargo of ammonium nitrate that had been sitting in a warehouse for seven years. No one is exactly sure why it ignited this time, but there was a dock worker that said that there were fireworks stored nearby. And they did find thousands of kilograms of fireworks recovered from a warehouse at that port. And this explosion was. It was a crater about 460ft wide, and it was about as big as the Texas City blast.

[Jerry]

So I saw both. I saw that it was about as big and I saw that it was about half the size, but I mean.

[Chuck Bryant]

But even at half, you know, but.

[Jerry]

So, yeah, go look at video of that. What's astounding about that Beirut blast is there happens to be people who are filming when it happened because there was a fire.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I remember when it happened. Yeah.

[Jerry]

So you've seen that, like that white cloud, that's that water vapor expanding. Right. And you can't see it, but there's nitrous oxide gas in there as well. So imagine twice that size. That would probably be about the size of that first Texas city blast in 1947.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, I remember seeing it on the news and I don't remember if they mentioned Texas City, but yeah, I mean, this is stuff that was just stored down there for like seven years, soaking up that warm kind of moist Mediterranean breeze. Not the way you should handle and store this stuff.

[Jerry]

No. And like, the story behind it's kind of interesting. Like, was started in Georgia, not our Georgia, but the Republic of Georgia, en route to Mozambique. And apparently the owners were like, we're not making enough money on this trip, so we're going to divert over to Beirut and pick up some more freight. And the crew said, no, we're not going to do that. It's going to make the weight dangerous. So they balked. Port fees started racking up and the owners apparently just decided to abandon the crew, the ship and the cargo. The cargo, once it was impounded, should have been sold off, but it wasn't. Instead, it just, like you said, sat there, stored incorrectly for six years until something caused it to blow up. Which is, I mean, just the idea that it was just negligence that led to that catastrophe is. It's even worse. I think that's something that's missing from the Texas City disaster. There wasn't really any negligent act, maybe a mistake or a bad choice, but no one was particularly negligent about it. So I think that's. It kind of makes the Beirut blast even worse that people were supposed to be doing stuff that they didn't do and a lot of people died as a result.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think the BP refinery in 2005, they had to pay out about 50 million bucks for that one. After they did a little safety audit. And in that safety audit, they found, and this was before the blast, actually, they did a safety audit and they found that a lot of people that worked at this plant, it says, came to work with, quote, an exceptional degree of fear of catastrophic incidences incidents, end quote. That's a little bit of an OSHA nightmare.

[Jerry]

Everything that I've read about that was. That was a direct result of BP cutting safety in favor of higher profit margins. That that's what happened. That's what allowed this plant to deteriorate, and the machinery just didn't work. But they traced this explosion. This is an oil refinery explosion. It had nothing to do with ammonium nitrate. But the. I. I think whatever chemical they put in gas to boost the octane level, they turned a machine on that does that. And somehow, like all these components to gasoline started vaporizing out into the air. It started shooting out of this tower because the pressure was overloaded. And there was so much gas vapor in the air that somebody had a pickup truck running nearby, and it got sucked up into the air intake, and the engine started revving, and that's actually what ignited the whole thing. All of this gas vapor, this pickup truck sucking in gas molecules that were just vaporized in the air around it. Crazy in Texas City again. It's crazy. So you got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

I got nothing else.

[Jerry]

Well, if you want to know more about the Texas City disaster, you can go look that up. I would strongly recommend reading Cheryl Lauersdorf Ross's Changing Lives in a Heartbeat journal article. And also, big shout out to fireengineering.com they had a good one. And then the local 1259, the Texas City Firefighters Union, has a really comprehensive overview of the Texas City disaster, too. So maybe check those out for even more details. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm going to call this. Well, I'm going to call it what Ryan called it. Well, I'm dumb, but I'm over it. Hey, guys. Long time. First time I thought I'd tell you. You had me duped for a long time. When I first started listening to the show a few years ago, and probably for a year after that first episode, I honestly thought there was a list of key words that Josh referred to toward the end of the episode whenever he says, well, since I said blank, it's time for listener mail. For an embarrassing. This is very cute. For an embarrassingly long time, I really thought that the blank word was from a predetermined master list and that you had revealed that list of words to the audience in an early episode. Wow. I guess like the magic word in Pee Wee's Playhouse. Yeah. Was that what it was?

[Jerry]

Yeah. This guy was to really love Pee Wee's Playhouse.

[Chuck Bryant]

I started listening to increasingly older episodes in hopes that I would hear that list or catch a trend toward the words used. Josh's transition with that statement at the end of every episode is just so smooth. Hey, there you go.

[Jerry]

Thanks, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

It wasn't until one episode when Josh's word was so mundane, so common, it was probably the or if or something along those lines that I finally realized there is no list. I had been fooled.

[Jerry]

The random fell from his eyes and he was free. Finally.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, since you said scales, those random words are just that random. I actually felt a bit disappointed when I realized, but it actually took some of the mystery out of the show. But I'm over it now. Whether or not it's good to admit I had been fooled by this for a long time is up for debate. But I've been meaning to tell you about this for a while. Hope you think of me every time Josh transitions to listener mail from now on. I totally will. Yeah, take care and keep doing what you're doing cause it's a fantastic show. And since I said show what? That's great. That is from Ryan Peschel.

[Jerry]

Thanks Ryan. Thanks for getting in our heads like that. Apparently we got in your heads too, so it's only fair, don't you think Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and just right then I didn't think we had a listener mail and then look what pops up.

[Jerry]

Ryan Peschel saves the day again. And only Ryan knows what I'm talking about. I just ruined his life again. He's back in the game. If you want to get in touch with us and try to get in our heads like Ryan did, so we have to think of you every time we say something about listener mail or what happened, you can write to us. Send us an email to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Josh Clark]

Stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the.

[Chuck Bryant]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Josh Clark]

Attention parents and grandparents. Are you searching for the perfect gift for your kids this holiday season? Give them the gift of adventure that will last all year long. A Guardian Bike the easiest, safest and quickest bikes for kids to learn on. What sets Guardian bikes apart? Designed especially for stability, they're low to the ground with a wide wheelbase and ultra lightweight frames. Offering superior control and balance, this design gives young riders the ability to learn in just one day without tears or frustration. Guardian Bikes are the only kids bikes designed and assembled in a USA factory, ensuring top notch quality and durability. They were also featured on Shark 10 tank and are the New York Times Wirecutter Top Kids bike pick for 2024. Make holiday gifting stress free with Guardian bikes with guaranteed one to two day shipping for just $29, you can trust your gift will arrive in time to create magical memories this holiday season. Plus, sign up for their newsletter to receive a free bike lock and pump with your first purchase. The perfect stocking stuffer for any kid on your list. Visit guardianbikes.com to secure the ultimate holiday gift today. Happy writing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey friends, if you're like me, you don't want just fast Internet service. You need it. And believe it or not, there are plenty of places in America where people don't have access.

[Jerry]

Yeah, and that's why this story is so important. AT&T recently completed an AT&T fiber buildout to more than 20,000 customer locations in Oldham County, Kentucky. So the entire community now has access to high speed connectivity.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

Yeah. And now the big part. This isn't just a Kentucky story. AT&T is on track to cover more than 30 million locations with fiber by the end of 2025. So those opportunities Oldham county got connected to, well, ATT is bringing them to millions of people across America. And that's good news for everybody. Connect changes everything at&t this podcast is.

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