WEBVTT - The Texas City Disaster of 1947 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.280 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.000 and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there, 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:25.400 and this is stuff you should know. It's about to 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:30.040 say natural disaster edition, but unnatural disaster edition. Industrial disaster 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.479 is what they call these human caused. In fact, from 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:35.840 what I saw what we're going to talk about today, 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.200 the main thing we're talking about today is the largest 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:44.760 industrial disaster in United States history? Still, oh still, yes, 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:50.720 what's seventy almost seventy five years on? Man, sad this 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.920 is a big one. Yeah, everything about this was really big, 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:58.200 but in basically all the wrong ways. Um, We're gonna 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.360 talk today about a disaster called the Texas City explosion, 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.959 and sadly you might say which one, because there's been 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.120 multiple massive explosions in Texas City. One of the reasons 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.520 why is because Texas City is has made a name 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:21.520 for itself as one of the premier petrochemical ports in 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.480 the United States and indeed possibly the world. I think 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.160 it was um up until World War Two, it was 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.960 like the fourth largest port in Texas, But I think 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.760 since World War Two um, it's grown even more. And 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.600 I know for a little while there, BP had a 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:41.280 refinery that was its most profitable oil refinery in the world, 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.240 which is really saying something. I mean, that's a big deal. 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:49.040 BP is an enormous company with multiple refinery so you know, 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.320 for the biggest one, the most profitable one to be 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.600 in Texas City. That kind of put Texas City on 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.320 the map in some circles. Yeah. So Texas City is 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:00.720 above the Gulf of Mexico, and like you said, it's 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.360 a port town founded in the late eighteen hundreds by 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.880 some Minnesota hunters and they said, you know what, I 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.160 think we can set up shop here. I think we 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.320 can dig up a canal, set up a rail line. 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:14.720 We've got some really good deep water, and we could 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.400 be a good shipping port. I want to know how they, like, 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.960 what what conversation led to that, Like what hunting trip 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.560 ends up in you basically building a port town in 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.079 a city that's about as far away from your home 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.800 as you can get in the same country. Yeah, I 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.320 mean there were some real go getters, I guess. Yeah, 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.720 I guess. So they couldn't just relax and kill animals. 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.280 Oh god, Uh so that's what happened to Texas City. 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:44.440 I mean, that's how it was kind of founded, and 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:50.079 it was like think refineries, think warehouses and chemical plants. Uh. 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.920 World War two comes around in the military, of course 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.200 as well, will be sort of controlling this area for 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.560 a while because it's pretty valuable port for US, and 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:01.880 we're going to ship munitions in and out of here. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.840 World War two comes and goes, and then after the war, 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:07.960 about a year and a half after the war, it 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:12.240 is run by civilians again. And let's just say that 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.520 it was a little more of a relaxed scene than 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:18.679 it was when the military was running the show. Yeah, 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.600 they the military ran like a tight ship basically. Um. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.240 And yeah, well there's just a big difference between when 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.200 the military is running a port and when the port's 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.080 run by just a whole bunch of different private companies, 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.800 you know what I'm saying. In Minnesota hunters exactly. So Um. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.600 That's not to say it was just some loosey goosey 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:42.440 um place or anything like that, but just comparatively speaking. Uh. 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.680 And one of the one of the other things that 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.160 Texas City had going against it on the morning of 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:52.720 April is that there weren't really a lot of standards 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.560 and regulations for handling chemicals, and then we didn't have 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:03.000 an enormous grasp on just how chemicals worked at that time. Um, 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.400 and so all of this, all of these things kind 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.480 of came together is kind of slightly lax oversight and 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.720 just kind of lack much more relaxed attitude toward cargo 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.520 and then a lack of awareness about just what kind 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.280 of dangers different cargoes pose just kind of set things 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.440 up for to take a bad turn. Yeah, So on 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:27.800 the morning of April six, there were three ships docked 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.880 in the port um. There was most notably the S S. 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:36.040 Grand Camp, which was it was a it was a 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.080 military ship at one point, but I think we gave 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:43.160 it to France as like a hey, sorry, Europe is 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.640 kind of destroyed, why don't you take this ship and 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:48.479 just use it for whatever you want to do. And 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.960 it was converted to a cargo ship, which is which 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.400 it was on the day of April six, And it 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:58.080 was beside the S S. High Flyer, And that was 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:02.160 beside the third one named after somebody, what was that one? 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:06.760 The Robert Keene or the William Keane. Oh wait, a minute, 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.640 which one was it? Well, it was the Wilson bee 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.160 Key even better, right, the Billy Keen as they called it. Yeah, 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.960 and I believe all three of those were liberty ships, right, Yeah, 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.640 they were World War two ships and they were I 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.279 think the SS high Flyer was being fixed at the 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.680 time but was still loaded down with stuff, as was 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.800 the Grand Camp. And will sort of detail what was 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:33.120 in the cargo because it's all very very key. Yeah, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.640 it's really important. So for five days leading up to 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.200 April sixt m Steve Doors, I think that's how you 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.680 say it, but basically dock hands. I don't know why 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.680 you wouldn't just say dock hands, you know, but the 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.560 Steven Doors, um man, I hope I'm saying that correctly, Chuck. 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:54.040 They had loaded up the Grand Camp with dred tons 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:58.479 of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and uh these were in one 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.600 hundred pound paper sack x akin to the kind of 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:06.320 sex that you would buy like Portland's cement in these days. Right. Um, 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:11.000 There's some other cargo, seisal, twine, peanuts, there's some machinery, 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.159 there was some cotton. There was sixteen cases of ammunition, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.200 I think, like for small arms. Ammunition um, but for 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.440 the most part it was a lot of ammonium nitrate. 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.200 And the same went for the s S High Flyer too, 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.200 which as you said, was in the next birth. It 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.400 was loaded with a thousand tons of ammonium nitrate and 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:34.400 then also very crucially two thousand tons of sulfur, and 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.839 all of these were also in those same hundred pound 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.240 paper bags. So at the time, like I was saying, 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.080 people didn't realize like this is this was a it 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:45.960 was a big deal that there was that much ammonium 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:50.360 nitrate just sitting around in this port at that time. Yeah, 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.520 it's a it's a crystal like solid. It's white um. 0:06:54.560 --> 0:07:00.080 A lot of times it's used for nitrogen for agricultural fertilizer, uh, 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.840 But if you combine it with fuel oils, it can 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.120 be very explosive and actually used for that for like 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.560 mining and construction and stuff like that. But it's not 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.120 like you know, if you tap the side of the 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.080 bag it's going to explode. It's pretty safe as long 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:17.520 as it's all on the up and up and it's 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.680 being stored properly. But if it starts to absorb moisture, 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.280 then it's sort of like Portland's cement. Again, it's just 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.520 gonna harden to a block. And then if that thing 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:30.920 is in a solid block, it's going to be just 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.160 a little bit more volatile and a little bit more 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.160 dangerous if ignited. Yeah. And I mean like it's not 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.200 even considered flammable as far as I know, and certainly 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.400 in n it wasn't considered flammable because if you walked 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.800 up to some of this this ammonium nitrate, these pellets 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.240 and just held the lighter to them, they wouldn't catch fire. 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:50.840 That's not really what they do. What they do is 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.680 they oxidize things. They basically create free radicals, like we 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.240 talked about in the free Radical episode Yeah, um, which 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:03.400 sets off like a chain reaction. Um. And because they oxidize, 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.880 they concentrate and condense and produce basically oxygen where it 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:12.080 was an otherwise present. When when that that is combined 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.760 with the fire, it makes a big time fire. Um. 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.440 So that's bad enough, right, Like if you set them 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.000 off like it'll it'll combust, or it will help something 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.160 else combust more efficiently and more more um at a 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.840 higher temperature. But the problem, the big problem with ammonium 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.720 nitrate is there is a point where it can reach 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:35.400 a high enough heat that it itself decays and degrades. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.760 And when that happens, it splits into two gases, nitrous 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.679 oxide and water vapor, which you're like, well, that's that's great. 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:45.760 You know, it just gets super duper high off of 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:47.520 one and the other one. It just makes you a 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:52.520 little moist. Maybe so, maybe so in small enough amounts. 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.560 But when this happens in a large enough amount, especially 0:08:55.600 --> 0:09:00.600 when this ammonium nitrate is in one big melted block, uh, 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.440 the chain reaction can happen much more efficiently. And when 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.720 those gases are UM are produced when the when the 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.880 thing decays and separates UM, they expand really quickly, and 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:17.360 that produces an explosion UM and the forces the energy 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.880 that's released from an explosion of ammonium nitrate decaying and 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:25.800 converting into nitrous oxide and water vapor is monumental, like 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:30.360 compared to atomic bomb blast. Basically, if you have enough 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.480 of it, say tons and a thousand tons and a 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.840 couple of ships to sitting import. All right, that's a 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.720 great place for cliffhanger. I think I think so too. 0:09:40.280 --> 0:10:11.839 All Right, we'll be right back after this, alright, So 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:16.920 this stuff, the cargo arrived by train to Texas City, 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.360 and it was probably already heating up a little bit 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.960 on this train and maybe already getting to the point 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.439 where it was a little I don't know about unstable, 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:31.080 but volatile at least. And the it gets transferred to 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.440 the ship, it continues to sort of heat up, and 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.959 the crew and everything, Like you said, there wasn't a 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.040 lot of awareness about kind of anything like this at 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:44.040 the time, So to them it was just another cargo hold. 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.280 They might have said, like, you know, be careful with 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.160 the stuff, guys, or maybe not even that, but they 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.760 definitely didn't know, like heat bad for this stuff. Yeah, 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.400 they said, you only two bucks from lunch yesterday. That's 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.160 what they said when they were loading this up. So 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.680 around eight am, the more earning Uh, these workers there 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.000 started noticing that there was smoke and vapors coming out 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:07.800 of the ship. Uh. So there was some kind of 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.040 a fire going on. No one knew how it started 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.319 or what happened. There are some people anecdotally it was 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.920 a cigarette. Uh that was not in the could have 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.160 been that wasn't in the official report, which also wouldn't 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.440 be surprising. Well, what I saw. I saw it later 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.080 on Chuck that um, the fact that these things were 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.360 in those paper sacks, that if they were heating up, 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:30.840 they were just going to continue to heat up. Being 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.760 packed tightly in the hold of this unventilated ship. Um, 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:36.640 they were just going to get warmer and warmer. And 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:40.160 it's possible they that the the ammonium nitrate caused the 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.480 paper sack to combust, catch fire, spread to other paper sacks, 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.200 and then you had a positive feedback loop where it 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.000 just kept getting The fire kept getting bigger and bigger, 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:55.920 and crucially very important, hotter and hotter. Right, So the 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.280 captain sees this happening. There are people kind of pouring 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.840 in and looking around at what's going on. The captain says, 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:07.280 batting down these hatches. The police harps over him and 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:11.000 start pumping steam in there, which apparently was a method 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.760 at the time to put out a fire on a 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.160 ship when you didn't want to ruin the cargo, as 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.560 opposed to just blasting it with a fire hose, which 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.000 would cause all the stuff to just brick up like 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:26.520 Portland's cement. He starts pumping steam in there and that 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.920 just started heating. You know, everyone knows steam is gonna 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.040 heat stuff up, so that just started and the moisture 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.600 made a bad situation a lot worse really quickly. Yeah, 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.920 I get the impression that had The captain's name was 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:42.920 Captain Charles de guillabond Um. He had he made the 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.160 decision to just go ahead and let the cargo be 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.840 ruined and have the fire put out with fire hoses. 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:52.120 This all might never have happened, but it was. And you, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:54.560 I mean, I understand where he was coming from. He 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.400 didn't want to ruin the cargo if he didn't have to, 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.319 because steaming out a fire aboard a ship was a 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.600 h an accepted firefighting technique. It works, and it could 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.880 conceivably save a lot of the cargo. So it's not 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:11.120 like he just made this ridiculous, stupid mistake. It's just 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.520 in hindsight, it was probably the decision that led to 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.120 this catastrophe. Yeah, I mean, I think more than anything, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.160 it's like you said, it was the time when there 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:23.920 was not much regulation and it's sort of in the 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.720 dawning of the chemical age. People just didn't know right. 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.040 And Plus also at the time, um Texas City had 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.920 a volunteer fire department UM which I would guess, wouldn't 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.640 have quite as much jurisdiction and could be told by 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.280 a captain like no, no, no, just go away, like 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.640 I'm I'm gonna handle this myself, rather than being like, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.480 uh no, we're going to put the fire out on 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.560 on your ship. Yeah, it's a good point. So the 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:52.760 steam is making things worse. Uh. It pumped into the 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.560 holds and everything's heating up. Everything's getting moist and like 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.400 we said, moisture is no good for this stuff, and 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.360 it did started to convert to these solid masses and 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.120 you know, there's gonna be gas releasing, and it's building 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:07.520 up all this pressure because they had battened down the 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.400 hatches and covered them with tarps, and it so much 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:12.360 so that it blew these hatch covers off at about 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.200 eight thirty in the morning. It's crazy. Just that alone 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.520 would have been spectacular, and I'm sure it was um. 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.440 But when those hatches blew off, all the smoke that 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.360 had been kind of stuck in the hole inside the 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:29.760 ship started billowing out. And the thing apparently about ammonium 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.680 nitrate burning is it produces really kind of mesmerizing colored 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.280 smoke from one of the um witnesses. It was apparently 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.520 salmon orange and purple, and so the smoke coming out 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:45.960 of it um started to attract people like like onlookers 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:47.720 who were like, what's what's going on? I want to 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.880 go see this giant, weird fire that's going on down 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:55.000 at the port, And something like three hundred people, including 0:14:55.160 --> 0:15:00.000 entire families, kids from the local school came over. Um, 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:01.920 all sorts of people just kind of stopped what they 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.360 were doing and came to watch this weird fire at 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.800 the port. And apparently KGB C out of Galveston, which 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.840 is just ten miles down the coast out in the 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.520 Gulf of Mexico. Um, they were warning people to stay away, 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.640 but apparently that just alerted more people that there was 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.120 something going on who went down to go check it 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.520 out themselves. Yeah, so they knew that there was a 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.080 big problem. At this point, they did call the firefighters 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.680 in and a tugboat to maybe try and get that 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:33.000 thing out of there. And Uh, at this point, like 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.520 you said, the heat was just so great that even 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:37.760 a fire hose isn't gonna do much. It's kind of 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.720 just vaporizing when it hits it because of the massive 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.720 amounts of heat, and then you know, this whole thing 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.560 started eight. At eight thirty is when the hatches blue. 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:52.000 And then at nine the thing exploded. And we're gonna 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.800 kind of list through a pretty horrifying list of um 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.640 of impacts from like distances like a size of a 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:07.160 graph in Denver, Colorado picked up this explosion UM and 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.640 this is again in the southernmost part of Texas, right, Yeah, 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.440 like they felt it in Louisiana, you know, like three 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:19.200 thousand foot fire bombs and cargo flying up in the air. 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.320 So yeah, the the enormous amount of energy that I 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.440 was talking about that was released by this tons of 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.920 ammonium nitrate UM in retrospect I think has been the 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.400 I saw compared to a two point seven kiloton blast, 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.120 which would put this blast of this ship blowing up 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.440 at somewhere on the order of about one third no 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:47.880 I'm sorry, one five of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb which 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.080 just completely leveled that city. This was about a fifth 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:55.600 that size, so it was still a really substantial, enormous blast. 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:57.440 And one of the first effects that had is that 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.960 it blew this Liberty Ship, this huge World War two 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.280 era cargo ship, a couple of thousand feet into the 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:09.920 air in multiple pieces to just shower out downward as 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:14.480 hot metal shrapnel UM onto the surrounding city. And that's 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.600 not accounting for the shrapnel that immediately blew outward as 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.920 those gases expand, um expanded right into all of those 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.320 onlookers and the people who are fighting the fire around 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.399 the port. Yeah, there was. They had a couple of 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.520 two ton anchors. One of those went about a mile 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:34.360 and a half away in the air. Uh. Like we said, 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.679 you could feel it in Louisiana. That was um, a 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.080 mon Santo and a Union carbide, two different chemical plants 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.200 kind of right beside it. They were just flattened, basically 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.120 just not even there anymore. Yeah. I saw that one 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.280 of the warehouses, Warehouse zero at the port, which was 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:50.919 I think the one that was closest to the ship. UM. 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.320 This historian from Houston, I think, said that it just 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.719 disappeared like it was just gone, like it wasn't there 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.760 any longer. Like the word disintegrate works in a lot 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.560 of the instances when you're describing what happened to a 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.199 lot of the structures and people who were around this 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.840 this blast. Well, yeah, I mean that's the obvious thing. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.159 You know, there were hundreds of onlookers, there were people 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.639 that worked there, There were all twenty eight members of 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.760 the fire department. They were all killed basically instantly. Anyone 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:24.200 within that zone was killed instantly. Some people, like you said, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.760 just just not even able to recover enough body parts 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.119 to identify humans at that point. Yeah, that proved to 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.920 be a real problem. So like, um, first of all, 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.280 the fact that the entire fire department apparently one There 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:39.600 was one survivor from the fire department, but he was 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:41.680 out of town at the time, That's why he survived. 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:43.880 But the whole fire department and all of their equipment 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.159 was immediately wiped out. UM. One of the problems was 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:49.800 with an explosion like this in a place like this 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.159 is that it ruptures lines and pipes and all of 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:57.320 those petrochemicals that are being refined suddenly catch fire. So 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.679 now you have these out of control fires in buildings 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.919 and structures that are left standing, UM, and you no 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.359 longer have a fire department or any fire equipment to 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.080 put it out for a little while. So the the 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.960 immediate impact out outside of the blast was also the 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:19.280 fires that were um lit just right after this too. Well, 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.000 I mean, you've got you know, you've got the metal shrapnel, 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.959 but then you've also remember there were peanuts and twine 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.800 and cotton and all this stuff. So that's these are 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.399 like fireballs being launched, basically starting fires all over the place. 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.760 It wasn't just in the immediate area. And like you said, 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.480 because the fire department was then out of commission. That's 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.440 that's real trouble. Yeah, So it took a little while 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:45.480 for um more AID to show up. But apparently this 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.359 this explosion was so bad and the catastrophe was so 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.720 great the Army, Navy, Coastguard, Marines, Texas National Guard, and 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.080 then firefighters from surrounding UH cities all came out to 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.199 help man. And this wasn't just like putting this Mike, 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.560 we fire out, but also like trying to you know, 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.520 rescue people from rubble. Like there's really a lot that 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.280 we could sit here and say. But if you have 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.199 a computer in front of you, like just look up 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:18.440 pictures um from the Texas City explosion. Of it's just 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:24.399 unreal what happened to like enormous steel buildings just turned 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.199 into like twisted metal. And this is like, you know, 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.639 the middle of a work day, so there were people 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.320 trapped all over the place um in this debris. So 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:38.399 there was a huge um rescue operation that had to start, 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.840 but it was delayed because most of the people who 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.040 were attasked with that kind of thing had all been 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:48.880 killed in the initial blast. Yeah. So remember earlier we 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.640 said that there were three ships there. Uh, this one 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.679 blows up, and obviously, you know it's a it's a 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.840 full on like eleven scene at this point with just 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.800 how chaotic it is, people are uh not noticing that 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:08.880 right next door, the S S. High Flyer also remember, 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.480 was loaded with this stuff and also with sulfur which 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:16.520 makes it become unstable, and this thing had been unlodged. 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.120 I mean, I'm surprised. It's just the integrity of these 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.320 ships is the only reason that those weren't just blown 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.000 to bits too. Like it was kind of right next 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.760 to it, and and it was still intact at least, 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.720 and it was blown from its mooring zo and drifted 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:34.480 over and kind of attached itself to the Wilson be Keen, 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.040 which was again in the slip next to it. And 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.160 I think there were some crew members aboard in there 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.080 that I guess we're just protected by that thick steel, 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.240 right from what I understand, And they were kind of 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:48.919 still doing their things for a little while, and they 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:53.360 were finally because the the high Flyer caught fire as well. Um, 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:56.439 they were finally forced out by the smoke. Because this 0:21:56.520 --> 0:21:59.760 is some noxious, noxious smoke. This isn't I mean, this 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.399 is just like wood burning smoke. This is some really 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.159 bad chemical smoke that can mess you up. It's crazy 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.640 that the sailors stayed aboard for an hour, but they're 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:10.680 finally forced off a ship. But they tell people like, hey, 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.119 this is this is on fire. Everybody's like, have you 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:15.480 seen the other problems we have over here? And the 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:20.200 fire department just got basically vaporized. Um, So the fire 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:23.640 was allowed to continue on the high Flyer for hours, 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.600 hours and hours like that. That blast happened at nine 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:31.200 twelve am, and it wasn't until the afternoon that somebody 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:36.679 else rediscovered the fire aboard the high Flyer and started 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.959 to kind of like raise the alarm about this. Um. Still, 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.200 this is such a chaotic scene that there wasn't anything 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:47.520 immediately done about it. And it wasn't until eleven PM 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.360 that they're finally like, oh, this is a really this 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:52.119 is a bad jam because not only do we have 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:55.960 a thousand tons tons of ammonium night trade aboard the 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:58.560 high flyer, there's that sulfur you mentioned, Chuck, and like 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:00.919 you said, it makes it even more un stable. And 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:06.520 that you know how um ammonium nitrate oxidizes things. Sulfur 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.800 is like food to that stuff is for it oxidizes sulfur. 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:15.880 It's just like piling on this oxidizing fuel to make 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:20.000 the blast even more energetic. So it would it would 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:22.760 be a really big problem if the high fire blew up. 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.080 So they brought in some tug boats in a fireboat 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:27.840 I think from Galveston, and started to try to take 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:30.520 it out of the berth um to tug it out 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:32.359 to see to let it like burn out or blow 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:34.680