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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,

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Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there,

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Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. It's about to

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Speaker 1: say natural disaster edition, but unnatural disaster edition. Industrial disaster

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Speaker 1: is what they call these human caused. In fact, from

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Speaker 1: what I saw what we're going to talk about today,

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Speaker 1: the main thing we're talking about today is the largest

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Speaker 1: industrial disaster in United States history? Still, oh still, yes,

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Speaker 1: what's seventy almost seventy five years on? Man, sad this

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Speaker 1: is a big one. Yeah, everything about this was really big,

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Speaker 1: but in basically all the wrong ways. Um, We're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk today about a disaster called the Texas City explosion,

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Speaker 1: and sadly you might say which one, because there's been

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Speaker 1: multiple massive explosions in Texas City. One of the reasons

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Speaker 1: why is because Texas City is has made a name

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Speaker 1: for itself as one of the premier petrochemical ports in

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Speaker 1: the United States and indeed possibly the world. I think

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Speaker 1: it was um up until World War Two, it was

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Speaker 1: like the fourth largest port in Texas, But I think

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Speaker 1: since World War Two um, it's grown even more. And

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Speaker 1: I know for a little while there, BP had a

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Speaker 1: refinery that was its most profitable oil refinery in the world,

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Speaker 1: which is really saying something. I mean, that's a big deal.

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Speaker 1: BP is an enormous company with multiple refinery so you know,

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Speaker 1: for the biggest one, the most profitable one to be

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Speaker 1: in Texas City. That kind of put Texas City on

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Speaker 1: the map in some circles. Yeah. So Texas City is

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Speaker 1: above the Gulf of Mexico, and like you said, it's

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Speaker 1: a port town founded in the late eighteen hundreds by

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Speaker 1: some Minnesota hunters and they said, you know what, I

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Speaker 1: think we can set up shop here. I think we

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Speaker 1: can dig up a canal, set up a rail line.

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Speaker 1: We've got some really good deep water, and we could

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Speaker 1: be a good shipping port. I want to know how they, like,

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Speaker 1: what what conversation led to that, Like what hunting trip

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Speaker 1: ends up in you basically building a port town in

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Speaker 1: a city that's about as far away from your home

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Speaker 1: as you can get in the same country. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean there were some real go getters, I guess. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess. So they couldn't just relax and kill animals.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, Uh so that's what happened to Texas City.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's how it was kind of founded, and

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Speaker 1: it was like think refineries, think warehouses and chemical plants. Uh.

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Speaker 1: World War two comes around in the military, of course

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Speaker 1: as well, will be sort of controlling this area for

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Speaker 1: a while because it's pretty valuable port for US, and

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Speaker 1: we're going to ship munitions in and out of here.

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Speaker 1: World War two comes and goes, and then after the war,

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Speaker 1: about a year and a half after the war, it

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Speaker 1: is run by civilians again. And let's just say that

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Speaker 1: it was a little more of a relaxed scene than

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Speaker 1: it was when the military was running the show. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they the military ran like a tight ship basically. Um.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, well there's just a big difference between when

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Speaker 1: the military is running a port and when the port's

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Speaker 1: run by just a whole bunch of different private companies,

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Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. In Minnesota hunters exactly. So Um.

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Speaker 1: That's not to say it was just some loosey goosey

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Speaker 1: um place or anything like that, but just comparatively speaking. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And one of the one of the other things that

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Speaker 1: Texas City had going against it on the morning of

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Speaker 1: April is that there weren't really a lot of standards

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Speaker 1: and regulations for handling chemicals, and then we didn't have

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Speaker 1: an enormous grasp on just how chemicals worked at that time. Um,

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Speaker 1: and so all of this, all of these things kind

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Speaker 1: of came together is kind of slightly lax oversight and

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Speaker 1: just kind of lack much more relaxed attitude toward cargo

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Speaker 1: and then a lack of awareness about just what kind

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Speaker 1: of dangers different cargoes pose just kind of set things

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Speaker 1: up for to take a bad turn. Yeah, So on

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Speaker 1: the morning of April six, there were three ships docked

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Speaker 1: in the port um. There was most notably the S S.

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Speaker 1: Grand Camp, which was it was a it was a

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Speaker 1: military ship at one point, but I think we gave

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Speaker 1: it to France as like a hey, sorry, Europe is

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Speaker 1: kind of destroyed, why don't you take this ship and

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Speaker 1: just use it for whatever you want to do. And

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Speaker 1: it was converted to a cargo ship, which is which

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Speaker 1: it was on the day of April six, And it

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Speaker 1: was beside the S S. High Flyer, And that was

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Speaker 1: beside the third one named after somebody, what was that one?

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Speaker 1: The Robert Keene or the William Keane. Oh wait, a minute,

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Speaker 1: which one was it? Well, it was the Wilson bee

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Speaker 1: Key even better, right, the Billy Keen as they called it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I believe all three of those were liberty ships, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were World War two ships and they were I

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Speaker 1: think the SS high Flyer was being fixed at the

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Speaker 1: time but was still loaded down with stuff, as was

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Speaker 1: the Grand Camp. And will sort of detail what was

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Speaker 1: in the cargo because it's all very very key. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's really important. So for five days leading up to

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Speaker 1: April sixt m Steve Doors, I think that's how you

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Speaker 1: say it, but basically dock hands. I don't know why

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't just say dock hands, you know, but the

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Speaker 1: Steven Doors, um man, I hope I'm saying that correctly, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: They had loaded up the Grand Camp with dred tons

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Speaker 1: of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and uh these were in one

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Speaker 1: hundred pound paper sack x akin to the kind of

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Speaker 1: sex that you would buy like Portland's cement in these days. Right. Um,

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Speaker 1: There's some other cargo, seisal, twine, peanuts, there's some machinery,

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Speaker 1: there was some cotton. There was sixteen cases of ammunition,

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Speaker 1: I think, like for small arms. Ammunition um, but for

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Speaker 1: the most part it was a lot of ammonium nitrate.

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Speaker 1: And the same went for the s S High Flyer too,

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Speaker 1: which as you said, was in the next birth. It

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Speaker 1: was loaded with a thousand tons of ammonium nitrate and

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Speaker 1: then also very crucially two thousand tons of sulfur, and

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Speaker 1: all of these were also in those same hundred pound

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Speaker 1: paper bags. So at the time, like I was saying,

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Speaker 1: people didn't realize like this is this was a it

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Speaker 1: was a big deal that there was that much ammonium

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Speaker 1: nitrate just sitting around in this port at that time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a crystal like solid. It's white um.

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Speaker 1: A lot of times it's used for nitrogen for agricultural fertilizer, uh,

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Speaker 1: But if you combine it with fuel oils, it can

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Speaker 1: be very explosive and actually used for that for like

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Speaker 1: mining and construction and stuff like that. But it's not

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Speaker 1: like you know, if you tap the side of the

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Speaker 1: bag it's going to explode. It's pretty safe as long

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Speaker 1: as it's all on the up and up and it's

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Speaker 1: being stored properly. But if it starts to absorb moisture,

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Speaker 1: then it's sort of like Portland's cement. Again, it's just

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Speaker 1: gonna harden to a block. And then if that thing

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Speaker 1: is in a solid block, it's going to be just

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Speaker 1: a little bit more volatile and a little bit more

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Speaker 1: dangerous if ignited. Yeah. And I mean like it's not

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Speaker 1: even considered flammable as far as I know, and certainly

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Speaker 1: in n it wasn't considered flammable because if you walked

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Speaker 1: up to some of this this ammonium nitrate, these pellets

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Speaker 1: and just held the lighter to them, they wouldn't catch fire.

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Speaker 1: That's not really what they do. What they do is

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Speaker 1: they oxidize things. They basically create free radicals, like we

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Speaker 1: talked about in the free Radical episode Yeah, um, which

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Speaker 1: sets off like a chain reaction. Um. And because they oxidize,

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Speaker 1: they concentrate and condense and produce basically oxygen where it

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Speaker 1: was an otherwise present. When when that that is combined

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Speaker 1: with the fire, it makes a big time fire. Um.

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Speaker 1: So that's bad enough, right, Like if you set them

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Speaker 1: off like it'll it'll combust, or it will help something

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Speaker 1: else combust more efficiently and more more um at a

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Speaker 1: higher temperature. But the problem, the big problem with ammonium

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Speaker 1: nitrate is there is a point where it can reach

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Speaker 1: a high enough heat that it itself decays and degrades.

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Speaker 1: And when that happens, it splits into two gases, nitrous

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Speaker 1: oxide and water vapor, which you're like, well, that's that's great.

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Speaker 1: You know, it just gets super duper high off of

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Speaker 1: one and the other one. It just makes you a

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Speaker 1: little moist. Maybe so, maybe so in small enough amounts.

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Speaker 1: But when this happens in a large enough amount, especially

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Speaker 1: when this ammonium nitrate is in one big melted block, uh,

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Speaker 1: the chain reaction can happen much more efficiently. And when

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Speaker 1: those gases are UM are produced when the when the

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Speaker 1: thing decays and separates UM, they expand really quickly, and

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Speaker 1: that produces an explosion UM and the forces the energy

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Speaker 1: that's released from an explosion of ammonium nitrate decaying and

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Speaker 1: converting into nitrous oxide and water vapor is monumental, like

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Speaker 1: compared to atomic bomb blast. Basically, if you have enough

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Speaker 1: of it, say tons and a thousand tons and a

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Speaker 1: couple of ships to sitting import. All right, that's a

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Speaker 1: great place for cliffhanger. I think I think so too.

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Speaker 1: All Right, we'll be right back after this, alright, So

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Speaker 1: this stuff, the cargo arrived by train to Texas City,

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Speaker 1: and it was probably already heating up a little bit

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Speaker 1: on this train and maybe already getting to the point

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Speaker 1: where it was a little I don't know about unstable,

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Speaker 1: but volatile at least. And the it gets transferred to

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Speaker 1: the ship, it continues to sort of heat up, and

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Speaker 1: the crew and everything, Like you said, there wasn't a

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Speaker 1: lot of awareness about kind of anything like this at

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Speaker 1: the time, So to them it was just another cargo hold.

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Speaker 1: They might have said, like, you know, be careful with

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Speaker 1: the stuff, guys, or maybe not even that, but they

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Speaker 1: definitely didn't know, like heat bad for this stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they said, you only two bucks from lunch yesterday. That's

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Speaker 1: what they said when they were loading this up. So

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Speaker 1: around eight am, the more earning Uh, these workers there

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Speaker 1: started noticing that there was smoke and vapors coming out

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Speaker 1: of the ship. Uh. So there was some kind of

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Speaker 1: a fire going on. No one knew how it started

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Speaker 1: or what happened. There are some people anecdotally it was

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Speaker 1: a cigarette. Uh that was not in the could have

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Speaker 1: been that wasn't in the official report, which also wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be surprising. Well, what I saw. I saw it later

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Speaker 1: on Chuck that um, the fact that these things were

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Speaker 1: in those paper sacks, that if they were heating up,

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Speaker 1: they were just going to continue to heat up. Being

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Speaker 1: packed tightly in the hold of this unventilated ship. Um,

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Speaker 1: they were just going to get warmer and warmer. And

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Speaker 1: it's possible they that the the ammonium nitrate caused the

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Speaker 1: paper sack to combust, catch fire, spread to other paper sacks,

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Speaker 1: and then you had a positive feedback loop where it

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Speaker 1: just kept getting The fire kept getting bigger and bigger,

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Speaker 1: and crucially very important, hotter and hotter. Right, So the

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Speaker 1: captain sees this happening. There are people kind of pouring

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Speaker 1: in and looking around at what's going on. The captain says,

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Speaker 1: batting down these hatches. The police harps over him and

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Speaker 1: start pumping steam in there, which apparently was a method

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Speaker 1: at the time to put out a fire on a

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Speaker 1: ship when you didn't want to ruin the cargo, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to just blasting it with a fire hose, which

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Speaker 1: would cause all the stuff to just brick up like

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Speaker 1: Portland's cement. He starts pumping steam in there and that

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Speaker 1: just started heating. You know, everyone knows steam is gonna

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Speaker 1: heat stuff up, so that just started and the moisture

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Speaker 1: made a bad situation a lot worse really quickly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I get the impression that had The captain's name was

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Speaker 1: Captain Charles de guillabond Um. He had he made the

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Speaker 1: decision to just go ahead and let the cargo be

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Speaker 1: ruined and have the fire put out with fire hoses.

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Speaker 1: This all might never have happened, but it was. And you,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I understand where he was coming from. He

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Speaker 1: didn't want to ruin the cargo if he didn't have to,

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Speaker 1: because steaming out a fire aboard a ship was a

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Speaker 1: h an accepted firefighting technique. It works, and it could

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Speaker 1: conceivably save a lot of the cargo. So it's not

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Speaker 1: like he just made this ridiculous, stupid mistake. It's just

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Speaker 1: in hindsight, it was probably the decision that led to

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Speaker 1: this catastrophe. Yeah, I mean, I think more than anything,

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Speaker 1: it's like you said, it was the time when there

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Speaker 1: was not much regulation and it's sort of in the

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Speaker 1: dawning of the chemical age. People just didn't know right.

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Speaker 1: And Plus also at the time, um Texas City had

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Speaker 1: a volunteer fire department UM which I would guess, wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have quite as much jurisdiction and could be told by

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Speaker 1: a captain like no, no, no, just go away, like

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna handle this myself, rather than being like,

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Speaker 1: uh no, we're going to put the fire out on

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Speaker 1: on your ship. Yeah, it's a good point. So the

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Speaker 1: steam is making things worse. Uh. It pumped into the

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Speaker 1: holds and everything's heating up. Everything's getting moist and like

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Speaker 1: we said, moisture is no good for this stuff, and

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Speaker 1: it did started to convert to these solid masses and

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Speaker 1: you know, there's gonna be gas releasing, and it's building

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Speaker 1: up all this pressure because they had battened down the

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Speaker 1: hatches and covered them with tarps, and it so much

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Speaker 1: so that it blew these hatch covers off at about

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Speaker 1: eight thirty in the morning. It's crazy. Just that alone

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Speaker 1: would have been spectacular, and I'm sure it was um.

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Speaker 1: But when those hatches blew off, all the smoke that

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Speaker 1: had been kind of stuck in the hole inside the

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Speaker 1: ship started billowing out. And the thing apparently about ammonium

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Speaker 1: nitrate burning is it produces really kind of mesmerizing colored

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Speaker 1: smoke from one of the um witnesses. It was apparently

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Speaker 1: salmon orange and purple, and so the smoke coming out

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Speaker 1: of it um started to attract people like like onlookers

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Speaker 1: who were like, what's what's going on? I want to

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Speaker 1: go see this giant, weird fire that's going on down

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Speaker 1: at the port, And something like three hundred people, including

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Speaker 1: entire families, kids from the local school came over. Um,

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Speaker 1: all sorts of people just kind of stopped what they

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Speaker 1: were doing and came to watch this weird fire at

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Speaker 1: the port. And apparently KGB C out of Galveston, which

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Speaker 1: is just ten miles down the coast out in the

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Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico. Um, they were warning people to stay away,

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Speaker 1: but apparently that just alerted more people that there was

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Speaker 1: something going on who went down to go check it

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Speaker 1: out themselves. Yeah, so they knew that there was a

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Speaker 1: big problem. At this point, they did call the firefighters

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Speaker 1: in and a tugboat to maybe try and get that

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Speaker 1: thing out of there. And Uh, at this point, like

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Speaker 1: you said, the heat was just so great that even

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Speaker 1: a fire hose isn't gonna do much. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: just vaporizing when it hits it because of the massive

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Speaker 1: amounts of heat, and then you know, this whole thing

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Speaker 1: started eight. At eight thirty is when the hatches blue.

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Speaker 1: And then at nine the thing exploded. And we're gonna

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Speaker 1: kind of list through a pretty horrifying list of um

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Speaker 1: of impacts from like distances like a size of a

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Speaker 1: graph in Denver, Colorado picked up this explosion UM and

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Speaker 1: this is again in the southernmost part of Texas, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like they felt it in Louisiana, you know, like three

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Speaker 1: thousand foot fire bombs and cargo flying up in the air.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, the the enormous amount of energy that I

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Speaker 1: was talking about that was released by this tons of

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Speaker 1: ammonium nitrate UM in retrospect I think has been the

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Speaker 1: I saw compared to a two point seven kiloton blast,

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Speaker 1: which would put this blast of this ship blowing up

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Speaker 1: at somewhere on the order of about one third no

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, one five of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb which

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Speaker 1: just completely leveled that city. This was about a fifth

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Speaker 1: that size, so it was still a really substantial, enormous blast.

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Speaker 1: And one of the first effects that had is that

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Speaker 1: it blew this Liberty Ship, this huge World War two

285
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Speaker 1: era cargo ship, a couple of thousand feet into the

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Speaker 1: air in multiple pieces to just shower out downward as

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Speaker 1: hot metal shrapnel UM onto the surrounding city. And that's

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Speaker 1: not accounting for the shrapnel that immediately blew outward as

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Speaker 1: those gases expand, um expanded right into all of those

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Speaker 1: onlookers and the people who are fighting the fire around

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Speaker 1: the port. Yeah, there was. They had a couple of

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Speaker 1: two ton anchors. One of those went about a mile

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Speaker 1: and a half away in the air. Uh. Like we said,

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Speaker 1: you could feel it in Louisiana. That was um, a

295
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Speaker 1: mon Santo and a Union carbide, two different chemical plants

296
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Speaker 1: kind of right beside it. They were just flattened, basically

297
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Speaker 1: just not even there anymore. Yeah. I saw that one

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Speaker 1: of the warehouses, Warehouse zero at the port, which was

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Speaker 1: I think the one that was closest to the ship. UM.

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Speaker 1: This historian from Houston, I think, said that it just

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Speaker 1: disappeared like it was just gone, like it wasn't there

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Speaker 1: any longer. Like the word disintegrate works in a lot

303
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Speaker 1: of the instances when you're describing what happened to a

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Speaker 1: lot of the structures and people who were around this

305
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Speaker 1: this blast. Well, yeah, I mean that's the obvious thing.

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Speaker 1: You know, there were hundreds of onlookers, there were people

307
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Speaker 1: that worked there, There were all twenty eight members of

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Speaker 1: the fire department. They were all killed basically instantly. Anyone

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Speaker 1: within that zone was killed instantly. Some people, like you said,

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Speaker 1: just just not even able to recover enough body parts

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Speaker 1: to identify humans at that point. Yeah, that proved to

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Speaker 1: be a real problem. So like, um, first of all,

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Speaker 1: the fact that the entire fire department apparently one There

314
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Speaker 1: was one survivor from the fire department, but he was

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Speaker 1: out of town at the time, That's why he survived.

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Speaker 1: But the whole fire department and all of their equipment

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Speaker 1: was immediately wiped out. UM. One of the problems was

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Speaker 1: with an explosion like this in a place like this

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Speaker 1: is that it ruptures lines and pipes and all of

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Speaker 1: those petrochemicals that are being refined suddenly catch fire. So

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Speaker 1: now you have these out of control fires in buildings

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Speaker 1: and structures that are left standing, UM, and you no

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Speaker 1: longer have a fire department or any fire equipment to

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Speaker 1: put it out for a little while. So the the

325
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Speaker 1: immediate impact out outside of the blast was also the

326
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Speaker 1: fires that were um lit just right after this too. Well,

327
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Speaker 1: I mean, you've got you know, you've got the metal shrapnel,

328
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Speaker 1: but then you've also remember there were peanuts and twine

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Speaker 1: and cotton and all this stuff. So that's these are

330
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Speaker 1: like fireballs being launched, basically starting fires all over the place.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just in the immediate area. And like you said,

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Speaker 1: because the fire department was then out of commission. That's

333
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Speaker 1: that's real trouble. Yeah, So it took a little while

334
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Speaker 1: for um more AID to show up. But apparently this

335
00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:48,359
Speaker 1: this explosion was so bad and the catastrophe was so

336
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Speaker 1: great the Army, Navy, Coastguard, Marines, Texas National Guard, and

337
00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:57,080
Speaker 1: then firefighters from surrounding UH cities all came out to

338
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Speaker 1: help man. And this wasn't just like putting this Mike,

339
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,560
Speaker 1: we fire out, but also like trying to you know,

340
00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:07,520
Speaker 1: rescue people from rubble. Like there's really a lot that

341
00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:10,280
Speaker 1: we could sit here and say. But if you have

342
00:20:10,359 --> 00:20:13,199
Speaker 1: a computer in front of you, like just look up

343
00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:18,440
Speaker 1: pictures um from the Texas City explosion. Of it's just

344
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Speaker 1: unreal what happened to like enormous steel buildings just turned

345
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Speaker 1: into like twisted metal. And this is like, you know,

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Speaker 1: the middle of a work day, so there were people

347
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:33,320
Speaker 1: trapped all over the place um in this debris. So

348
00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:38,399
Speaker 1: there was a huge um rescue operation that had to start,

349
00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:41,840
Speaker 1: but it was delayed because most of the people who

350
00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:44,040
Speaker 1: were attasked with that kind of thing had all been

351
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Speaker 1: killed in the initial blast. Yeah. So remember earlier we

352
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Speaker 1: said that there were three ships there. Uh, this one

353
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Speaker 1: blows up, and obviously, you know it's a it's a

354
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Speaker 1: full on like eleven scene at this point with just

355
00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:04,800
Speaker 1: how chaotic it is, people are uh not noticing that

356
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:08,880
Speaker 1: right next door, the S S. High Flyer also remember,

357
00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:12,480
Speaker 1: was loaded with this stuff and also with sulfur which

358
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:16,520
Speaker 1: makes it become unstable, and this thing had been unlodged.

359
00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:19,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm surprised. It's just the integrity of these

360
00:21:19,119 --> 00:21:22,320
Speaker 1: ships is the only reason that those weren't just blown

361
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Speaker 1: to bits too. Like it was kind of right next

362
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Speaker 1: to it, and and it was still intact at least,

363
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:30,720
Speaker 1: and it was blown from its mooring zo and drifted

364
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Speaker 1: over and kind of attached itself to the Wilson be Keen,

365
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:38,040
Speaker 1: which was again in the slip next to it. And

366
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Speaker 1: I think there were some crew members aboard in there

367
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Speaker 1: that I guess we're just protected by that thick steel,

368
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Speaker 1: right from what I understand, And they were kind of

369
00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:48,919
Speaker 1: still doing their things for a little while, and they

370
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:53,360
Speaker 1: were finally because the the high Flyer caught fire as well. Um,

371
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,439
Speaker 1: they were finally forced out by the smoke. Because this

372
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,760
Speaker 1: is some noxious, noxious smoke. This isn't I mean, this

373
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,399
Speaker 1: is just like wood burning smoke. This is some really

374
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:05,159
Speaker 1: bad chemical smoke that can mess you up. It's crazy

375
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:07,640
Speaker 1: that the sailors stayed aboard for an hour, but they're

376
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:10,680
Speaker 1: finally forced off a ship. But they tell people like, hey,

377
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:13,119
Speaker 1: this is this is on fire. Everybody's like, have you

378
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 1: seen the other problems we have over here? And the

379
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:20,200
Speaker 1: fire department just got basically vaporized. Um, So the fire

380
00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:23,640
Speaker 1: was allowed to continue on the high Flyer for hours,

381
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:26,600
Speaker 1: hours and hours like that. That blast happened at nine

382
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 1: twelve am, and it wasn't until the afternoon that somebody

383
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:36,679
Speaker 1: else rediscovered the fire aboard the high Flyer and started

384
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:40,959
Speaker 1: to kind of like raise the alarm about this. Um. Still,

385
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:44,200
Speaker 1: this is such a chaotic scene that there wasn't anything

386
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 1: immediately done about it. And it wasn't until eleven PM

387
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,360
Speaker 1: that they're finally like, oh, this is a really this

388
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:52,119
Speaker 1: is a bad jam because not only do we have

389
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 1: a thousand tons tons of ammonium night trade aboard the

390
00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:58,560
Speaker 1: high flyer, there's that sulfur you mentioned, Chuck, and like

391
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:00,919
Speaker 1: you said, it makes it even more un stable. And

392
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 1: that you know how um ammonium nitrate oxidizes things. Sulfur

393
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: is like food to that stuff is for it oxidizes sulfur.

394
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:15,880
Speaker 1: It's just like piling on this oxidizing fuel to make

395
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:20,000
Speaker 1: the blast even more energetic. So it would it would

396
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 1: be a really big problem if the high fire blew up.

397
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: So they brought in some tug boats in a fireboat

398
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: I think from Galveston, and started to try to take

399
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:30,520
Speaker 1: it out of the berth um to tug it out

400
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:32,359
Speaker 1: to see to let it like burn out or blow

401
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,680
Speaker 1: up or whatever it was gonna do. But I guess

402
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 1: it was stuck so fast that um that they couldn't

403
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: get it out. Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know,

404
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:45,639
Speaker 1: this thing was not I guess just sort of wedged

405
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 1: in there from that first explosion. And I think they

406
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:51,199
Speaker 1: worked on it for a couple of hours. They started

407
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,919
Speaker 1: at about eleven p m. And then it looks like

408
00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:59,239
Speaker 1: by one am they had stopped that process and at

409
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,359
Speaker 1: one tin and this is now in April seventeen, you know,

410
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: early next morning, Uh, the high Flyer exploded as well,

411
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:11,200
Speaker 1: and this was even more violent. Um. The only I mean,

412
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 1: that's not a saving grace at all, because everything was

413
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: already leveled. But the only reason it didn't cause a

414
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 1: more death and more destruction, sadly is because everything was

415
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 1: already destroyed and most people were already dead. Yeah. And

416
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,479
Speaker 1: plus also they knew enough by this time that they

417
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: needed to clear the area that there wasn't anything they

418
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 1: could do, so everybody who was working in the rescue

419
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:34,239
Speaker 1: operation was told to leave. So there I just I

420
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 1: don't know if there were any more deaths from the

421
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 1: high Flyer blowing up. But the problem was is that

422
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 1: any fires that might have been put out were re lit,

423
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: and other structures that may have been spared from the

424
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 1: initial blasts were now leveled or caught fire or both.

425
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:51,480
Speaker 1: So it was a big problem that the high Flyer

426
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: blew up as well. Uh, it sunk the Wilson Kinge too,

427
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: did it sunk it? Um? And it was it was yeah,

428
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: I can only imagine too. Also if you survived that

429
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: first one to have another blast like that, even when

430
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 1: you were away from and you knew was coming, would

431
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: just do something to the nerves that would be really

432
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: difficult to recover from. Yeah, for sure, you want to

433
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 1: take a break. Yeah, we'll take a little break and

434
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,439
Speaker 1: we'll talk about sort of the results of the devastation

435
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:50,440
Speaker 1: and a couple of other incidents right after this. Okay,

436
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: so chuck. UM. One thing that we didn't say was

437
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:59,639
Speaker 1: that the initial explosion by the Grand Camp created like

438
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:06,120
Speaker 1: a feteen foot tidal wave that washed inland and UM.

439
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:10,959
Speaker 1: People died almost in creative ways in this disaster, and

440
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 1: one of those ways was, UM, those petrochemicals. I think

441
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: there's a molasses refinery that started to get mixed in

442
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: that kept the petrochemicals burning in the water when it

443
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:26,880
Speaker 1: mixed with them. When this tidal wave blew out, UM,

444
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: when it blew in, I'm sorry, it was on fire.

445
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: So it actually caught people on fire. It caught people

446
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: on fire on the way back out to sea. And

447
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: people who survived the initial blasts were actually swept out

448
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: and drowned from this too. There were people who died

449
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,959
Speaker 1: in airplanes that had come around to kind of circle

450
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: the area. UM, and we're blown out of the sky. Um.

451
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: There were people who died in buildings that collapsed. There

452
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: were people who died from shrapnel falling out of the

453
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 1: sky and killing them even though they were miles away.

454
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 1: Like there were there was so much death than destruction

455
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: that it's really difficult to get across what happened to

456
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:08,160
Speaker 1: this poor little ports city that hadn't done anything to anybody,

457
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:13,160
Speaker 1: that just suddenly blew up. Yeah. In the end, Uh,

458
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 1: the official death toll was close to six people, hundred

459
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 1: and thirteen of which were just vaporized. No trace was

460
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: ever found of a hundred and thirteen people. UH, casualties

461
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: up to five thousand. The numbers kind of vary, but

462
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,959
Speaker 1: anywhere from thirty undred to five thousand. And you know,

463
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: Texas City was not a very big place. It was

464
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: about sixteen thousand strong. So this was just devastating to

465
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 1: the city. Uh, into the region. Um. It took about

466
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:48,479
Speaker 1: a week to put out all these fires, and I

467
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:53,959
Speaker 1: think a full month plus to recover whatever bodies they

468
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: could recover at that point. Yeah, the final body wasn't

469
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 1: found until mid May. UM. The there was there were

470
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: people who were never um, like you said, accounted for

471
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 1: there were there were the converse of that was true too,

472
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:14,439
Speaker 1: there were parts of people that were never identified. UM.

473
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,479
Speaker 1: And one of the accounts that I read was like

474
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: I was saying, was written by UH, I think a

475
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: University of Houston historian UM named Cheryl Lowers doorf ross

476
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: in UM the he in the Journal Houston History. But

477
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 1: she recounts somebody UM mentioning a woman who was trying

478
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: to identify her husband who was lost in the disaster,

479
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: and she had to sort through hands. They had a

480
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: collection of hands that UM, this woman was trying to

481
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: figure out which one belonged to her husband. And like,

482
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: that's just nuts to hear. But if you could even

483
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: begin to put yourself into that woman's shoes, the reality

484
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: of that, yes, of being in that room, of like

485
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: looking at different hands, and then also not just the

486
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 1: horror of of that, of of like having to look

487
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: through body parts that may or may not be your husband's,

488
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: but then the self doubt, like is that my husband's hand,

489
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 1: Like I don't remember what it looked like, you know,

490
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: like that just your mind messing with you on top

491
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: of the horrific experience that you're already undergoing. But she

492
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: was one of many, because something like sixty one um

493
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: people I believe were interred without being identified, but there

494
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: their remains were um kind of assembled and uh and

495
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: and put together in a memorial service that was attended

496
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: by something like thousands of people, I believe, So, Chuck,

497
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: So if there was sixteen thousand people and that many

498
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: people were hurt or killed by this blast, you can

499
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: imagine how quickly this little town was overwhelmed with all

500
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: these casualties. And so they were getting people like every

501
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: which way, trucking them over to Galt, Galveston, like getting

502
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: them wherever they could, whatever hospital they could find. But

503
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: very quickly the high school gym was taken over to

504
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: serve as a field hospital, and then shortly after that

505
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: the morgue. And one of the stories that stuck out

506
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: to me was the boy Scouts were pressed into service

507
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 1: to basically help out however they could. And these poor

508
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: little like like teenage and preteen Scouts are like working

509
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: in this makeshift morgue in their high school gym. Like,

510
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: imagine the impression that had on them the rest of

511
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: their life, you know, I know, isn't that crazy? Like

512
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: every aspect of this story is just nuts it's very sad. Yeah,

513
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 1: and of course the the financial loss was huge, UM

514
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: about a hundred million dollars in property loss five million

515
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: and loss petroleum products and that's about seven hundred million

516
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: and three point five billion in today dollars. I think

517
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 1: there is UM sort of buried beneath the berms there

518
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: as a memorial park where sixty three unidentified victims are buried. Yeah,

519
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: that's what I was talking about. Yeah, and there's that

520
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: anchor that we talked about. I don't know if it

521
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: was the one that actually blew the mile and a

522
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: half away, but at least one of the anchors is

523
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: uh is a monument at the park along with UM

524
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: a scarred propeller from the high flyer at the entrance

525
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: to the port there at Texas City. Yeah. So that

526
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: UM that funeral procession that they had that attracted I

527
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: think something like five thousand mourners. UM was a real

528
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:26,959
Speaker 1: like community effort. UM. There was something like fifty plus

529
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: funeral homes from twenty eight different cities that all participated,

530
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: and each of these sixty three unidentified people were there

531
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 1: remains I should say, we're put in their own individual

532
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: caskets and buried in the Memorial Park, which is still

533
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 1: you know there that that park is still there with

534
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,239
Speaker 1: the anchor and everything. Um, but it was. It's just

535
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: it's such an enormous, weird catastrophe and just such a

536
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: devastating thing, especially looking back seventy years to read about.

537
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: But when you do read about it, if you can

538
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: just kind of put yourself in mind of what that

539
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: was like, if you know, trying to recover from that,

540
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: it's it's astounding that Texas City did recover. A lot

541
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:09,239
Speaker 1: of people moved um and just said not only like,

542
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: do I think the city is never going to come

543
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:12,719
Speaker 1: back from this? I don't know if I can come

544
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: back from this, But the city actually did come back,

545
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 1: and they did build back from what I understand, even

546
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: bigger than before, which is how that BP refinery that

547
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 1: ended up blowing up that became the most profitable and

548
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: VP's entire company. Um. Because the city built back even

549
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: better than before. That's great. It is great. I mean

550
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 1: not great that it exploded again in two thousand five, obviously,

551
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: but great that they were had to stick to it

552
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: nous to come back as a city. So you know,

553
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 1: obviously following something like this, there's gonna be a lot

554
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:47,959
Speaker 1: more regulation going on. The US is gonna step up

555
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,479
Speaker 1: federally and say, hey, wait a minute, we really need

556
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: to take a look at how we're handling these chemicals,

557
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: how we're storing these things, how we're shipping these things. Uh.

558
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: And a lot of changes were made here and around

559
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: the world. But it's not to say that that completely

560
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: prevented this from happening again, because in Beirute just last

561
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: year in August, there was another big cargo of ammonium

562
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: nitrate that had been sitting in a warehouse for seven years.

563
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: It's no one is exactly sure whyatt ignited this time,

564
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,719
Speaker 1: but there was a dock worker that said that there

565
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: were fireworks stored nearby, and they did find thousands of

566
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: kilograms of fireworks recovered from a warehouse at that port.

567
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 1: And this explosion was you know, it was a crater

568
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: about four hundred and sixty ft wide, and you know,

569
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: it was about as big as the Texas City blasts.

570
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: I So I saw both. I saw that it was

571
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: about as big, and I saw that it was about

572
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: half the size. But I mean that even a half,

573
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: you know. But so yeah, go look at video that

574
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: what's astounding about that Beirute blast is there happens to

575
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: be people who are filming when it happened, because there

576
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: was a fire. I remember when it happened. Yeah, so

577
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: you've seen that that like that white cloud, that's that

578
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: water vapor expanding right and the you can't see it,

579
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: but there's nitrous oxide gas in there as well. Um,

580
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: so imagine twice that size. That's that would probably be

581
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: about the size of that first Texas City blast in nine. Yeah.

582
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:18,839
Speaker 1: I mean I remember seeing it on the news and

583
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:22,959
Speaker 1: I don't remember if they mentioned Texas City, but um yeah,

584
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: I mean this is stuff that was just stored down

585
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 1: there for like seven years, soaking up that that warm,

586
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 1: kind of moist Mediterranean breeze. Uh. Not the way you

587
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 1: should handle and store the stuf now. And like the

588
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: story behind is kind of interesting, Like the was started

589
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: in Georgia, not our Georgia, but the Republic of Georgia.

590
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: Um on way en route to Mozambique, and the apparently

591
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 1: the owners were like, we're not making enough money on

592
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: this this trip, so we're gonna divert over to um

593
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: Bay route and pick up some more freight. And the

594
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: crew said, no, we're not gonna do it's gonna make

595
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 1: the weight dangerous. So they balked port feat started racking up,

596
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 1: and the owners apparently just decided to abandon the crew,

597
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: the ship, and the cargo. The cargo once it was impounded,

598
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: should have been sold off, but it wasn't. Instead, it just,

599
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: like you said, sat there, stored incorrectly for six years

600
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: until something caused it to blow up, which is I mean,

601
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:15,359
Speaker 1: just the the idea that it was just negligence that

602
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: led to that catastrophe is it's even worse. I think

603
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: that's something that's missing from the Texas City disaster there.

604
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: There wasn't really any negligent act. Maybe a mistake or

605
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: a bad choice, but no one was particularly negligent about it.

606
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: So I think that's it kind of makes the Beirute

607
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: last even worse that people were supposed to be doing

608
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: stuff that they didn't do and a lot of people

609
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:41,920
Speaker 1: died as a result. Yeah. I think the BP refinery

610
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, they had to pay out about

611
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: fifty million bucks for that one after they did a

612
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 1: a little safety audit and in that safety audit um

613
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: they found it and this was before the blast. Actually

614
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: they did a safety audit and they found that a

615
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: lot of people that worked at this plant, um it says,

616
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: came to work with quote an exceptional degree of fear

617
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: of catastrophic incidences. Yeah, incidents in quote. That's a little

618
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,720
Speaker 1: bit of a ocean nightmare. Everything that I've read about

619
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: that was that that was the direct result of BP

620
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: cutting safety in favor of higher profit margins. That that's

621
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: what happened. That's what allowed this plant to deteriorate. And

622
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: the machinery just didn't work. But they traced this explosion.

623
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: This is an oil refinery explosion. It had nothing to

624
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 1: do with ammonium nitrate. But the does I think whatever

625
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: whatever chemical they put in gas to boost the octane level.

626
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: They turned a machine on that does that, and somehow,

627
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:42,319
Speaker 1: like all these components to the gasoline started vaporizing out

628
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: into the air. It started shooting out of this tower

629
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: because the pressure was overloaded and there was so much

630
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,920
Speaker 1: gas vapor in the air that somebody had a pickup

631
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: truck running nearby and it got sucked up into the

632
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: air and take and the engine started revving, and that's

633
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,760
Speaker 1: actually what ignited the whole thing. All of this gas

634
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: vay for this pickup truck sucking in gas molecules that

635
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: were just vaporized in the air around it. Crazy in

636
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: Texas City. Again, it's crazy. So you got anything else?

637
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Well, if you want to know

638
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 1: more about the Texas City disaster, you can go look

639
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: that up UM. I would strongly recommend reading UM Cheryl

640
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: Lowers door for ross Is Changing Lives and a Heartbeat

641
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: Journal article. And also big shout out to fire Engineering

642
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 1: dot Com they had a good one and then the

643
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: Local twelve fifty nine the Texas City Firefighters Union UM

644
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Speaker 1: has a really comprehensive overview of the Texas City disaster too,

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Speaker 1: so maybe check those out for even more details. And

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Speaker 1: since since I said that, it's time for a listener mail, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this, uh, well, I'm gonna call it

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Speaker 1: what Ryan called it. Well, I'm dumb, but I'm over it. Hey,

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Speaker 1: it's a long time. First time. I thought i'd tell

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Speaker 1: you you had me duped for a long time. When

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Speaker 1: I first started listening to the show, so a few

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Speaker 1: years ago, and probably for a year after that first episode,

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Speaker 1: I honestly thought there was a list of keywords that

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Speaker 1: Josh referred to towards the end of the episode, whenever

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Speaker 1: he says, well, since I said blank, it's time for

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Speaker 1: listener mail for an embarrassing this is very cute. For

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Speaker 1: an embarrassingly long time, I really thought that the blank

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Speaker 1: word was from a predetermined master list, and that you

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Speaker 1: had revealed that list of words to the audience in

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Speaker 1: an early episode. I guess, like the magic word inhouse, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: was that what it was? Yeah? This guy was to

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Speaker 1: really love Pee's Playhouse. I started listening to increasing the

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Speaker 1: older episodes and hopes that I would hear that list

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Speaker 1: or catch a trend toward the words used. Josh's transition

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Speaker 1: with that statement at the end of every episode is

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Speaker 1: just so smooth. Hey, there you go. It wasn't until

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Speaker 1: one episode, when Josh's word was so mundane o common

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Speaker 1: it's probably the or if or something along those lines,

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Speaker 1: that I finally realized there is no list. I had

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Speaker 1: been fooled. Fell from his eyes and he was fly, Well,

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Speaker 1: since you said scales, those random words are just that random.

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Speaker 1: Actually felt a bit disappointed when I realized this, but

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Speaker 1: it actually took some of the mystery out of the show.

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Speaker 1: But I'm over it now. Whether or not it's good

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Speaker 1: to admit I've been fooled by this for a long

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Speaker 1: time is up for debate. But the meaning to tell

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Speaker 1: you about this for a while. I hope you think

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Speaker 1: of me every time Josh transitions to listener mail. From

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Speaker 1: now on, I totally will take care and keep doing

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Speaker 1: what you're doing because it's a fantastic show. And since

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Speaker 1: I said show dot dot dot what that's great? That

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Speaker 1: is from Ryan Peschel. Thanks Ryan, Thanks for getting in

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Speaker 1: our heads like that. Apparently we got in your heads too,

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Speaker 1: so it's only fair, don't you think, Chuck. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: just right then, I didn't think we had a listener

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Speaker 1: mail and then look what pops up. Ryan Pecial saves

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Speaker 1: the day again. And only Ryan knows what I'm talking about.

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Speaker 1: I just ruined his life again. He's back in the game. Uh.

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Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us and

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Speaker 1: try to get in our heads like Ryan did, so

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Speaker 1: we have to think of you every time we say

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Speaker 1: something about listener mail or what have you, you can

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Speaker 1: write to us send us an email to Stuff podcast

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Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts for my

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Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows,