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Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's me Josh. For this week's SYSK Selects.

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Speaker 1: I've chosen our episode on the Texas City disaster. In Texas,

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Speaker 1: they do everything bigger, including industrial disasters. In this episode

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Speaker 1: from March of twenty twenty one, we cover one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest explosions in American history, made up of not one,

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Speaker 1: but two huge blasts that leveled the refinery poortown of

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Speaker 1: Texas City. I hope you find this one as riveting

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Speaker 1: as we did.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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

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Speaker 1: 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.

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Speaker 2: I was about to say natural disaster edition, but unnatural

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Speaker 2: disaster edition.

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Speaker 1: Industrial disaster is what they call these.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, human caused.

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Speaker 1: In fact, from what I saw what we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about today, the main thing we're talking about today

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Speaker 1: is the largest industrial disaster in United States history.

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Speaker 2: Still oh still huh?

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Speaker 1: Yes, what seventy almost seventy five years.

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Speaker 2: On Man's sad. This is a big one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, everything about this was really big, but in basically

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Speaker 1: all the wrong ways. We're going to talk today about

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Speaker 1: a disaster called the Texas City explosion, and sadly you

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Speaker 1: might say which one, because there's been multiple massive explosions

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Speaker 1: in Texas City. And one of the reasons why is

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Speaker 1: because Texas City has made a name for itself as

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Speaker 1: one of the premier petrochemical ports in the United States

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Speaker 1: and indeed possibly the world. I think it was up

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Speaker 1: until World War Two it was like the fourth largest

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Speaker 1: port in Texas, but I think since World War Two

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Speaker 1: it's grown even more. And I know for a little

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Speaker 1: while there, BP had a refinery that was its most

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Speaker 1: profitable oil refinery in the world, which is really saying something.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's a big deal. BP's an enormous company

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Speaker 1: with multiple refinery so you know, for the biggest one,

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Speaker 1: the most profitable one to be in Texas City. That

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Speaker 1: kind of put Texas City on the map in some circles.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So Texas City is above the Gulf of Mexico,

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Speaker 2: and like you said, it's a port town founded in

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Speaker 2: the late eighteen hundreds by some Minnesota hunters and they said,

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Speaker 2: you know what, I think we can set up shop here.

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Speaker 2: I think we can dig up a canal, set up

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Speaker 2: a rail line. Yeah, we've got some really good deep

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Speaker 2: water and we could be a good shipping port.

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Speaker 1: I want to know how they, like what conversation led

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Speaker 1: to that, Like what hunting trip ends up in you

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Speaker 1: basically building a port town in a city that's about

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Speaker 1: as far away from your home as you can get

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Speaker 1: in the same country.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there were some real go getters, I guess.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. So they couldn't just kill animals.

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Speaker 2: Right, God, So that's what happened to Texas City. I

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Speaker 2: mean that's how it was kind of founded. And it

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Speaker 2: was a I think refineries, think warehouses and chemical plants.

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Speaker 2: World War two comes around and the military, of course says, well,

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Speaker 2: we'll be sort of controlling this area for a while

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Speaker 2: because it's a pretty valuable port for us, and we're

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Speaker 2: gonna ship munitions in and out of here. World War

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Speaker 2: two comes and goes, and then after the war, about

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Speaker 2: a year and a half after the war, it is

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Speaker 2: run by civilians again. And let's just say that it

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Speaker 2: was a little more of a relaxed scene than it

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Speaker 2: was when the military was running the show.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the military ran it like a tight ship basically,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Minnesota hunters exactly. So that's not

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Speaker 1: to say it was just some lucy goosey place or

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Speaker 1: anything like that, but just comparatively speaking, And one of

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Speaker 1: the other things that Texas City had going against it

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Speaker 1: on the morning of April sixteenth, nineteen forty seven, is

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Speaker 1: that there weren't really a lot of standards and regulations

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

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Speaker 1: grasp on just how chemicals worked at that time, and

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Speaker 1: so all of these things kind of came together. Is

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Speaker 1: kind of slightly lax oversight and just kind of much

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Speaker 1: more relaxed attitude toward cargo, and then a lack of

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Speaker 1: awareness about just what kind of dangers different cargoes pose

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Speaker 1: just kind of set things up for to take a

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Speaker 1: bad turn.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So on the morning of April sixteenth, there were

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Speaker 2: three ships docked in the port, was most notably the

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Speaker 2: SS Grand Camp, which was it was it was a

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Speaker 2: military ship at one point, but I think we gave

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Speaker 2: it to France as like a Hey, sorry, Europe is

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Speaker 2: kind of destroyed. Why don't you take this ship and

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Speaker 2: just use it for whatever you want to do. And

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Speaker 2: it was converted to a cargo ship, yeah, which is

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Speaker 2: which it was on the day of April sixteenth, and

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Speaker 2: it was beside the SS high Flyer, And that was

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Speaker 2: beside the third one named after somebody.

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Speaker 1: What was that one, the Robert Keene or the William Keene.

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Speaker 2: Oh wait a minute, which one was it?

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Speaker 1: Well, it was the Wilson B Keen even better.

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Speaker 2: Right, the Billy Keen as they called it.

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

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they were World War Two ships and they were

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Speaker 2: I think the SS high Flyer was being fixed at

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Speaker 2: the time but was still loaded down with stuff, as

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Speaker 2: was the Grand Camp and sort of detail what was

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Speaker 2: in the cargo because it's all very very key.

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

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Speaker 1: to April sixteenth, 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: Steve doors Man, I hope I'm saying that correctly, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: They had loaded up the Grand Camp with twenty three

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Speaker 1: hundred tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and these were in

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Speaker 1: one hundred pound paper sacks, akin to the kind of

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

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Speaker 1: there were some other cargo, sisle twine, peanuts, There was

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Speaker 1: some machinery, there were some cotton. There was sixteen cases

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Speaker 1: of ammunition, I think, like for small arms ammunition. But

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

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Speaker 1: And the same went for the SS high Flyer too,

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Speaker 1: which as you said, was in the next berth. 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 one hundred

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

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Speaker 1: people didn't realize like this is this is 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.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a crystal like solid. It's white.

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Speaker 2: A lot of times it's used for nitrogen for agricultural fertilizer,

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Speaker 2: but if you combine it with fuel oils. It can

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Speaker 2: be very explosive and actually used for that for like

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Speaker 2: mining and construction and stuff like that. But it's not like,

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Speaker 2: you know, if you tap the side of the bag

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Speaker 2: it's going to explode. It's pretty safe as long as

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Speaker 2: it's all in the up and up and it's being

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Speaker 2: stored properly. But if it starts to absorb moisture, then

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Speaker 2: it's sort of like Portland cement again, it's just going

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Speaker 2: to harden to a block, right, and then if that

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Speaker 2: thing is in a solid block, it's going to be

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Speaker 2: just a little bit more volatile and a little bit

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Speaker 2: more dangerous if ignited.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean like it's not even considered flammable

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Speaker 1: as far as I know, and certainly in nineteen forty

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Speaker 1: seven it wasn't considered flammable because if you walked up

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Speaker 1: to some of this ammonium nitrate these pellets and just

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Speaker 1: held a lighter to them, they wouldn't catch fire. That's

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Speaker 1: not really what they do. What they do is they

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

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Speaker 1: about in the free Radical episode, which sets off like

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Speaker 1: a chain reaction, and because they oxidize, they concentrate and

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Speaker 1: condense and produce basically oxygen where it was an otherwise present.

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Speaker 1: When when that that is combined with the fire, it

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Speaker 1: makes a big time fire. So that's bad enough, right,

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Speaker 1: Like if you set them off like it'll it'll combust,

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Speaker 1: or it'll help something else combust more efficiently and more

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Speaker 1: more at a higher temperature. But the problem, the big

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Speaker 1: problem with ammonium nitrate is there is a point where

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Speaker 1: it can reach a high enough heat that it itself

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Speaker 1: decays and degrades, and when that happens, it splits into

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Speaker 1: two gases, nitrous oxide and water vapor, which you're like, well,

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Speaker 1: that's that's great. You know, you just get super duper

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Speaker 1: high off of one and the other one just makes

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Speaker 1: you a little moist. Maybe so, maybe so in small

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

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

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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 are produced, when the thing decays and separates,

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Speaker 1: they expand really quickly, and that produces an explosion. And

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Speaker 1: the force is the energy that's released from an explosion

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Speaker 1: of ammonium nitrate decaying and converting into nitros oxide and

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Speaker 1: water vapor is monumental, like compared to atomic bomb blast. Basically,

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Speaker 1: if you have enough of it, say twenty three hundred

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Speaker 1: tons and a thousand tons and a couple of ships

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Speaker 1: to sitting in port.

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Speaker 2: All right, that's a great place for cliffhanger.

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Speaker 1: I think. I think so too.

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Speaker 2: All Right, we'll be right back after this. All right.

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Speaker 2: So this stuff, the cargo arrived by train to Texas City,

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Speaker 2: and it was probably already heating up a little bit

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Speaker 2: on this train and maybe already getting to the point

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Speaker 2: where it was a little i don't know about unstable,

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Speaker 2: but volatile at least. And the it gets transferred to

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Speaker 2: the ship, it continues to sort of heat up, and

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Speaker 2: the crew and everything, like you said, there wasn't a

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Speaker 2: lot of awareness about kind of anything like this at

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Speaker 2: the time, So to them it was just another cargo hold.

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Speaker 2: They might have said, like, you know, be careful with

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Speaker 2: this stuff, guys, or maybe not even that, Yeah, but

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Speaker 2: they definitely didn't know, like heat bad for this stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they said, you owe me two bucks from lunch yesterday.

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Speaker 1: That's what they said when they were loading this up.

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Speaker 2: So around eight am in the morning, these workers there

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Speaker 2: started noticing that there was smoke in vapors coming out

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Speaker 2: of the ship. So there was some kind of a

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Speaker 2: fire going on. No one knew how it started or

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Speaker 2: what happened. There are some people anecdotally to say it

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Speaker 2: was a cigarette, was not in the could have been

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Speaker 2: that wasn't in the official report, which also wouldn't be surprising.

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Speaker 1: Well, what I saw I saw it later on Chuck

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Speaker 1: that the fact that these things were in those paper sacks,

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Speaker 1: that if they were heating up, they were just going

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Speaker 1: to continue to heat up. Being packed tightly in the

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Speaker 1: hold of this unventilated ship, they were just going to

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Speaker 1: get warm and warmer. And it's possible they that the

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Speaker 1: ammonium nitrate caused the paper sack to combust, catch fire,

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Speaker 1: spread to other paper sacks, and then you had a

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Speaker 1: positive feedback loop where it just kept getting The fire

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Speaker 1: kept getting bigger and bigger, and crucially very important, hotter

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Speaker 1: and hotter.

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Speaker 2: Right, So the captain sees this happening. There are people

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Speaker 2: kind of pouring in and looking around at what's going on.

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Speaker 2: The captain says, batten down these hatches, pull theice tarps

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Speaker 2: over him, and start pumping steam in there, which apparently

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Speaker 2: was a method at the time to put out a

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Speaker 2: fire on a ship when you didn't want to ruin

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Speaker 2: the cargo, as opposed to just blasting it with a

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Speaker 2: fire hose, which would cause all this stuff to just

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Speaker 2: brick up like Portland cement. He starts pumping steam in there,

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Speaker 2: and that just started heating. You know, everyone knows steam

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Speaker 2: is going to heat up, So that just started and

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Speaker 2: the moisture made a bad situation a lot worse really quickly.

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

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Speaker 1: was Captain Charles de Guiabon. 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

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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 of fire aboard a ship was an

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Speaker 1: accepted firefighting technique. It works, and it could conceivably save

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Speaker 1: a lot of the cargo. So it's not like he

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Speaker 1: just made this ridiculous, stupid mistake. It's just in hindsight,

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Speaker 1: it was probably the decision that led to this catastrophe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think more than anything, it's like

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Speaker 2: you said, it was the time when there was not

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Speaker 2: much regulation and sort of in the dawning of the

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Speaker 2: chemical age, people just didn't know right.

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

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Speaker 1: volunteer fire department, which I would guess wouldn't have quite

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Speaker 1: as much jurisdiction and could be told by a captain

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Speaker 1: like no, no, no, I just go away, like I'm

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Speaker 1: going to handle this myself, rather than being like, no,

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Speaker 1: we're going to put the fire out on your ship.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good point. So the steam is making

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Speaker 2: things worse. It pumped into the holds and everything's heating up.

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Speaker 2: Everything's getting moist and like we said, moisture is no

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Speaker 2: good for this stuff, and it did. It started to

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Speaker 2: convert to these solid masses and you know, there's going

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Speaker 2: to be gas releasing and it's building up all this

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Speaker 2: pressure because they had battened down the hatches and covered

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Speaker 2: them with tarps, and it so much so that it

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Speaker 2: blew these hatch covers off at about eight thirty in

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Speaker 2: the morning.

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Speaker 1: It's crazy. Just that alone would have been spectacular and

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Speaker 1: I'm sure it was. But when those hatches blew off,

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Speaker 1: all the smoke that had been kind of stuck in

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Speaker 1: the hole inside the ship started billowing out. And the

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Speaker 1: thing apparently about ammonium nitrate burning is it produces really

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Speaker 1: kind of mesmerizing colored smoke. From one of the witnesses,

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Speaker 1: it was apparently salmon orange and purple. And so this

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Speaker 1: smoke coming out of it started to attract people like

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Speaker 1: onlookers who were like, 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. All

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

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Speaker 1: doing and came to watch this weird fire at the port.

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Speaker 1: And apparently KGBC out of Galveston, which is just ten

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Speaker 1: miles down the coast out in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Speaker 1: They were warning people to stay away, but apparently that

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Speaker 1: just alerted more people that there was something going on

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Speaker 1: who went down to go check it out themselves.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so they knew that there was a big problem.

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Speaker 2: At this point. They did call the firefighters in and

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Speaker 2: the tugboat to maybe try and get that thing out

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Speaker 2: of there. And at this point, like you said, the

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Speaker 2: heat was just so great that even a fire hose

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Speaker 2: isn't going to do much. It's kind of just vaporizing

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Speaker 2: when it hits it. Yeah, that's crazy because of the

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Speaker 2: massive amounts of heat. And then you know, this whole

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Speaker 2: thing started at eight At eight thirty is when the

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Speaker 2: hatches blew, and then at nine to twelve the thing exploded.

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Speaker 2: And we're going to kind of list through a pretty

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Speaker 2: horrifying list of impacts from like distances, like a seismograph

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Speaker 2: in Denver, Colorado picked up this explosion.

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

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like they felt it in Louisiana, you know, like

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Speaker 2: three thousand foot fire bombs and cargo flying up in

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Speaker 2: the air.

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

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Speaker 1: talking about that was released by this twenty three hundred

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Speaker 1: tons of ammonium nitrate in retrospect, I think as been

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Speaker 1: the I saw it compared to a two point seven

293
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Speaker 1: kiloton blast, which would put this blast of this ship

294
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Speaker 1: blowing up at somewhere on the order of about one

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Speaker 1: third no, I'm sorry, one fifth of the Hiroshima nuclear

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Speaker 1: bomb which just completely leveled that city. This was about

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Speaker 1: a fifth that size, so it was still a really substantial,

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Speaker 1: enormous blast. And one of the first effects that had

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Speaker 1: is that it blew this Liberty ship, this huge World

300
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Speaker 1: War Two era cargo ship, a couple thousand feet into

301
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Speaker 1: the air in multiple pieces to just shower out downward

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Speaker 1: as hot metal shrapnel 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 expanded right into all of those onlookers

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Speaker 1: and the people who are fighting the fire around the port.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there was They had a couple of two ton anchors.

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Speaker 2: One of those went about a mile and a half

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Speaker 2: away in the air. Like we said, you could feel

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Speaker 2: it in Louisiana. There was a Monsanto and a Union Carbide,

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Speaker 2: two different chemical plants kind of right beside it. They

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Speaker 2: were just flattened, basically just not even there anymore.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that one of the warehouse's Warehouse zero

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Speaker 1: at the port, which is I think the one that

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Speaker 1: was closest to the ship. This historian from Houston, I

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Speaker 1: think said that it just disappeared like it was just gone,

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Speaker 1: like it wasn't there any longer. Like the word disintegrate

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Speaker 1: works in a lot of the instances when you're describing

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Speaker 1: what happened to a lot of the structures and people

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Speaker 1: who were around this blast.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean that's the obvious thing. You know,

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Speaker 2: there were hundreds of onlookers, there were people that worked there,

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Speaker 2: There were all twenty eight members of the fire department.

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Speaker 2: They were all killed basically instantly. Anyone within that zone

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Speaker 2: was killed instantly. Some people, like you said, just not

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Speaker 2: even able to recover enough body parts to add enough

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Speaker 2: i humans at that point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that proved to be a real problem. So, like,

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Speaker 1: first of all, the fact that the entire fire department

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Speaker 1: apparently one There was one survivor from the fire department,

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Speaker 1: but he was out of town at the time, That's

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Speaker 1: why he survived. But the whole fire department and all

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Speaker 1: of their equipment was immediately wiped out. One of the

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

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Speaker 1: like this is that it ruptures lines and pipes and

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

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

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Speaker 1: the buildings and structures that are left standing and you

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Speaker 1: no longer have a fire department or any fire equipment

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

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Speaker 1: immediate impact outside of the blast was also the fires

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Speaker 1: that were lit just right after this too.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean you've got you know, you've got the

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Speaker 2: metal shrapnel, but then you've also remember there were peanuts

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Speaker 2: and twine and cotton and all this stuff. So that's

345
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Speaker 2: these are like fireballs being launched, basically starting fires all

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Speaker 2: over the place. It wasn't just in the immediate area.

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Speaker 2: And like you said, because the fire department was then

348
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Speaker 2: out of commission's that's real trouble.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So it took a little while for more aid

350
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Speaker 1: to show up. But apparently this explosion was so bad

351
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Speaker 1: and the catastrophe was so great the Army, Navy, Coastguard, Marines,

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Speaker 1: Texas National Guard, and then firefighters from surrounding cities all

353
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Speaker 1: came out to help man. And this wasn't just like

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Speaker 1: putting this chemical fire out, but also like trying to

355
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Speaker 1: you know, rescue people from rubble. Like there's really a

356
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Speaker 1: lot that we could sit here and say, but if

357
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Speaker 1: you have a computer in front of you, like just

358
00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:47,439
Speaker 1: look up pictures from the Texas City explosion of nineteen

359
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Speaker 1: forty seven. It's just unreal what happened to like enormous

360
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Speaker 1: steel buildings just turned into like twisted metal. And this

361
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Speaker 1: is like, you know, the middle of a work day.

362
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Speaker 1: So there were people trapped all over the place in

363
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Speaker 1: this debris. So there was a huge rescue operation that

364
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Speaker 1: had to start, but it was delayed because most of

365
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Speaker 1: the people who were tasked with that kind of thing

366
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Speaker 1: had all been killed in the initial blast.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So remember earlier we said that there were three

368
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:26,639
Speaker 2: ships there. This one blows up, and obviously, you know

369
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Speaker 2: it's a full on like nine to eleven seen at

370
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Speaker 2: this point, with just how chaotic it is, people are

371
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Speaker 2: not noticing that right next door, the SS High Flyer

372
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Speaker 2: also remember, was loaded with this stuff and also with

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Speaker 2: sulfur which makes it become unstable, and this thing had

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Speaker 2: been unlodged. I mean, I'm surprised. It's just the integrity

375
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Speaker 2: of these ships is the only reason that those weren't

376
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Speaker 2: just blown to bits too. Like it was kind of

377
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Speaker 2: right next to it and it was still intact at least,

378
00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 2: and it was from its mooring zoe and drifted over

379
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:05,360
Speaker 2: and kind of attached itself to the Wilson be Kin,

380
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:09,399
Speaker 2: which was again in the slip next to it, and

381
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Speaker 2: I think there were some crew members aboard in there

382
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Speaker 2: that I guess were just protected by that thick steel.

383
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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, from what I understand, And.

384
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Speaker 2: They were kind of still doing their things for a.

385
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Speaker 1: Little while, and they were finally because the High Flyer

386
00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:25,880
Speaker 1: caught fire as well, they were finally forced out by

387
00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:29,679
Speaker 1: the smoke. Because this is some noxious, noxious smoke. This

388
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:32,280
Speaker 1: isn't I mean, this isn't just like wood burning smoke.

389
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:34,880
Speaker 1: This is some really bad chemical smoke that can mess

390
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: you up. It's crazy that these sailors stayed aboard for

391
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 1: an hour but they're finally forced off a ship. But

392
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:43,160
Speaker 1: they tell people like, hey, this is on fire. Eybody's

393
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,760
Speaker 1: like have you seen the other problems we have over here?

394
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Speaker 1: And the fire apartment just got basically vaporized. So the

395
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 1: fire was allowed to continue on the high Fire for hours,

396
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 1: hours and hours like that. Blast happened at nine to

397
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Speaker 1: twelve am, and it wasn't until the afternoon that somebody

398
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 1: else rediscovered the fire aboard the High Flyer and started

399
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:11,840
Speaker 1: to kind of like raise the alarm about this. Still

400
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: this is such a chaotic scene that there wasn't anything

401
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 1: immediately done about it, and it wasn't until eleven PM

402
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,159
Speaker 1: that they're finally like, oh, this is a really this

403
00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 1: is a bad jam because not only do we have

404
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:27,399
Speaker 1: a thousand tons tons of ammonium nitrate aboard the high Flyer,

405
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:29,680
Speaker 1: there's that sulfur you mentioned, chuck, and like you said,

406
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:32,399
Speaker 1: it makes it even more unstable. And that you know

407
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: how ammonium nitrate oxidizes things. Sulfur is like food to

408
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,720
Speaker 1: that stuff is it oxidizes sulfur. It's just like piling

409
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 1: on this oxidizing fuel to make the blast even more

410
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:52,240
Speaker 1: energetic soul. It would be a really big problem if

411
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 1: the high Flyer blew up. So they brought in some

412
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 1: tugboats in a fireboat I think from Galveston, and started

413
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Speaker 1: to try to take it out of the berth to

414
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:02,680
Speaker 1: tug it out to sea to let it like burn

415
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:04,440
Speaker 1: out or blow up or whatever it was going to do.

416
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 1: But I guess it was stuck so fast that that

417
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:10,879
Speaker 1: they couldn't get it out.

418
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, this thing was

419
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 2: not I guess just sort of wedged in there from

420
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 2: that first explosion, and I think they worked on it

421
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 2: for a couple of hours. They started at about eleven

422
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 2: PM and then it looks like by one am they

423
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 2: had stopped that process. And at one ten, and this

424
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,159
Speaker 2: is now on April seventeenth, you know, early next morning,

425
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 2: the high Flyer exploded as well, and this was even

426
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 2: more violent. The only I mean, it's not a saving

427
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 2: grace at all, because everything was already leveled. But the

428
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 2: only reason it didn't cause more death and more destruction,

429
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 2: sadly is because everything was already destroyed and most people

430
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 2: were already dead.

431
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and plus also they knew enough by this time

432
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,160
Speaker 1: that they needed to clear the area that there wasn't

433
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 1: anything they could do, so everybody who was working in

434
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 1: the rescue operation was told to leave. So I don't

435
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 1: know if there were any more deaths from the high

436
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:10,640
Speaker 1: Flyer blowing up. But the problem was is that any

437
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: fires that might have been put out or relt and

438
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 1: other structures that may have been spared from the initial

439
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 1: blast were now leveled or caught fire or both. So

440
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: it was a big problem that the high Flyer blew

441
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:23,439
Speaker 1: up as well.

442
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:26,400
Speaker 2: You think it sunk the Wilson Kinge too.

443
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: It did it sunk it and it was Yeah. I

444
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: can only imagine too. Also, if you survived that first one,

445
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 1: to have another blast like that, even what you were

446
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,439
Speaker 1: away from and you knew was coming, would just do

447
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 1: something to the nerves that would be really difficult to

448
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: recover from. Yeah, for sure, you want to take a break.

449
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll take a little break and we'll talk about

450
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 2: sort of the results of the devastation and a couple

451
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:51,399
Speaker 2: of other incidents right after this.

452
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 1: Okay, so Chuck. One thing that we didn't say was

453
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: that the initial explosion by the Grand Camp created like

454
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: a fifteen foot title wave that washed inland and people

455
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: died almost in creative ways in this disaster, And one

456
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 1: of those ways was those petrochemicals. I think there was

457
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: a molasses refinery that started to get mixed in that

458
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: kept the petrochemicals burning in the water when it mixed

459
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: with them. When this title wave blew out. When it

460
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: blew in, I'm sorry, it was on fire. So it

461
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: actually caught people on fire. It caught people on fire

462
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: on the way back out to sea, and people who'd

463
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,120
Speaker 1: survived the initial blasts were actually swept out and drowned

464
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: from this too. There were people who died in airplanes

465
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: that had come around to kind of circle the area

466
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: and were blown out of the sky. There were people

467
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: who died in buildings that collapsed. There were people who

468
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 1: died from shrapnel falling out of the sky and killing

469
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 1: them even though they were miles away. Like, there was

470
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: so much death and destruction that it's really difficult to

471
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: get across what happened to this poor little port city

472
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: that hadn't done anything to anybody, that just suddenly blew up.

473
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the end, the official death all was close

474
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 2: to six hundred, five hundred and eighty one people, one

475
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 2: hundred and thirteen of which were just vaporized. No trace

476
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 2: was ever found of one hundred and thirteen people. Casualties

477
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 2: up to five The numbers kind of vary, but anywhere

478
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 2: from thirty five hundred to five thousand. And you know,

479
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 2: Texas City was not a very big place. It was

480
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 2: about sixteen thousand strong, So this was just devastating to

481
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 2: the city into the region. It took about a week

482
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 2: to put out all these fires, and I think a

483
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 2: full month plus to recover whatever bodies they could recover

484
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 2: at that point.

485
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:31,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, the final body wasn't found until mid May. There

486
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 1: was there were people who were never like you said,

487
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: accounted for, there were there were The converse of that

488
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: was true too, there were parts of people that were

489
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 1: never identified. And one of the accounts that I read

490
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: was like I was saying, was written by I think

491
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: a University of Houston historian named Cheryl Lawers dwarf Ross

492
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: in the in the Journal Houston History. But she recounts

493
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: somebody mentioning a woman who was trying to identify her

494
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: husband who is lost in the disaster, and she had

495
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: to sort through hands. They had a collection of hands

496
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: that this woman was trying to figure out which one

497
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 1: belonged to her husband. And like, that's just nuts to hear.

498
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: But if you can even begin to put yourself into

499
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: that woman's shoes.

500
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, the reality of that, yes, of being in.

501
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 1: That room, of like looking at different hands, and then

502
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: also not just the horror of that, of having to

503
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: look through body parts that may or may not be

504
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,479
Speaker 1: your husband's, but then the self doubt, like is that

505
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: my husband's hand, Like I don't remember what it looked like,

506
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: you know, like that just your mind messing with you.

507
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: On top of the horrific experience that you're already undergoing.

508
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: But she was one of many because something like sixty

509
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: one people I believe were interred without being identified, but

510
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 1: there remains were kind of assembled and put together in

511
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 1: a memorial service that was attended by something like thousands

512
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: of people, I believe, So, Chuck, So if there was

513
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand people and that many people were hurt or

514
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: killed by this blast, you can imagine how quickly this

515
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: little town was overwhelmed with all these casualties. And so

516
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: they were getting people like every which way, trucking them

517
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: over to Galveston, like getting them wherever they could, whatever

518
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: hospital they could find. But very quickly the high school

519
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: gym was taken over to serve as a field hospital,

520
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: and then shortly after that the morgue. And one of

521
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: the stories that stuck out to me was the boy

522
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 1: Scouts were pressed into service to basically help out however

523
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: they could. And these poor little like teenage and preteen

524
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: Scouts are like working in this makeshift morgue in their

525
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 1: high school gym. Like, imagine the impression that had on

526
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 1: them the rest of their life. You know, jeez, I know,

527
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:58,959
Speaker 1: isn't that crazy? Like every aspect of this story is

528
00:30:59,080 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: just nuts.

529
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 2: It's very sad. Yeah, and of course the financial loss

530
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 2: was huge, about one hundred million dollars in property loss,

531
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 2: five hundred million in loss petroleum products, and that's about

532
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 2: seven hundred million and three point five billion in today dollars.

533
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 2: I think there is sort of buried beneath the berms

534
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 2: there as a memorial park where sixty three unidentified victims

535
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 2: are buried.

536
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was talking about.

537
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's that anchor that we talked about. I

538
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 2: don't know if it was the one that actually blew

539
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 2: the mile and a half away, but at least one

540
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 2: of the anchors is a monument at the park, along

541
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 2: with a scarred propeller from the high flyer at the

542
00:31:43,200 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 2: entrance to the port there at Texas City.

543
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. So that funeral procession that they had that attracted

544
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: I think something like five thousand mourners was a real

545
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: like community effort. There was something like fifty plus funeral

546
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: homes from twenty eight different city that all participated, and

547
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: each of these sixty three unidentified people were there. Remains,

548
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: as you say, were put in their own individual caskets

549
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: and buried in the memorial park, which is still you

550
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: know there that park is still there with the anchor

551
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: and everything, but it was It's just it's such an enormous,

552
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: weird catastrophe and just such a devastating thing, especially looking

553
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: back seventy years to read about. But when you do

554
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: read about it, if you can just kind of put

555
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: yourself in mind of what that was like, of you know,

556
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: trying to recover from that, it's astounding that Texas City

557
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: did recover. A lot of people moved and just said

558
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: not only like, do I think the city's never going

559
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: to come back from this? I don't know if I

560
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: can come back from this, But the city actually did

561
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: come back, and they did build back from what I understand,

562
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: even bigger than before, which is how that BP refinery

563
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: that ended up blowing up that became the most profitable

564
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: in VP's entire company because the city built back even

565
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: better them before.

566
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 2: That's great.

567
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: It is great.

568
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 2: I mean not great that it exploded again in two

569
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 2: thousand and five, obviously, but great that they had to

570
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 2: stick to it and it's to come back as a city.

571
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:14,719
Speaker 2: So you know, obviously following something like this, there's going

572
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 2: to be a lot more regulation going on. The US

573
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 2: is going to step up federally and say, hey, wait

574
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 2: a minute, we really need to take a look at

575
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 2: how we're handling these chemicals, how we're storing these things,

576
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 2: how we're shipping these things. And a lot of changes

577
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 2: were made here and around the world. But it's not

578
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 2: to say that that completely prevented this from happening again,

579
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 2: because in Beirut just last year, in August of twenty twenty,

580
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 2: there was another big cargo of ammonium nitrate that had

581
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 2: been sitting in a warehouse for seven years. It's no

582
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 2: one is exactly sure whyatt ignited this time, but there

583
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 2: was a dock worker that said that there were fireworks

584
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 2: stored nearby, and they did find thousands of kilograms of

585
00:33:56,560 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 2: fireworks recovered from a warehouse at that port. And this

586
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 2: explosion was you know, it was a crater about four

587
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty feet wide, and you know, it was

588
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 2: about as big as the Texas City blast.

589
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: I so I saw both. I saw that it was

590
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: about as big, and I saw that it was about

591
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: half the size.

592
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:15,719
Speaker 2: But I mean that even at half, you know.

593
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 1: But so yeah, go look at video of that. What's

594
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 1: astounding about that bay Rout blast? Is there happens to

595
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: be people who are filming when it happened, because there

596
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:23,479
Speaker 1: was a fire.

597
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:24,760
Speaker 2: I remember when it happened.

598
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you've seen that that like that white cloud,

599
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:32,399
Speaker 1: that's that water vapor expanding right and the you can't

600
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,800
Speaker 1: see it, but there's nitrous oxide gas in there as well.

601
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 1: So imagine twice that size that's that would probably be

602
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: about the size of that first Texas City blast in

603
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:44,720
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven.

604
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I remember seeing it on the news,

605
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 2: and I don't remember if they mentioned Texas City, but yeah,

606
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 2: I mean, this is stuff that was just stored down

607
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 2: there for like seven years. Soaking up that warm, kind

608
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:02,360
Speaker 2: of moist Mediterranean breeze. Not the way you should handle

609
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 2: and store the.

610
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: Story now, And like the story behind is kind of interesting,

611
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:08,640
Speaker 1: Like that was started in Georgia, not our Georgia, but

612
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:12,840
Speaker 1: the Republic of Georgia en route to Mozambique, and the

613
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: apparently the owners were like, we're not making enough money

614
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:19,720
Speaker 1: on this trip, so we're gonna divert over to Beirut

615
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 1: and pick up some more freight. And the crew said, no,

616
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 1: we're not gonna do. It's going to make the weight dangerous.

617
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,320
Speaker 1: So they balked portfe started racking up and the owners

618
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: apparently just decided to abandon the crew, the ship, and

619
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: the cargo. The cargo once it was impounded, should have

620
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 1: been sold off, but it wasn't. Instead, it just, like

621
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 1: you said, sat there, stored incorrectly for six years until

622
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: something caused it to blow up. Which is I mean,

623
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: just the idea that it was just negligence that led

624
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: to that catastrophe is it's even worse. I think that's

625
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: something that's missing from the Texas City disaster there. There

626
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: wasn't really any negligent act. Maybe a mistake or a

627
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:01,359
Speaker 1: bad choice, but no one was particularly really negligent about it.

628
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: So I think that's it kind of makes the bay

629
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: rout last even worse that people were supposed to be

630
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 1: doing stuff that they didn't do and a lot of

631
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: people died as a result. Yeah.

632
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 2: I think the BP Refinery in two thousand and five,

633
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 2: they had to pay out about fifty million bucks for

634
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 2: that one after they did a little safety audit, and

635
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 2: in that safety audit they found it and this was

636
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 2: before the blast. Actually they did a safety audit and

637
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 2: they found that a lot of people that worked at

638
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 2: this plant. It says came to work with quote an

639
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:36,720
Speaker 2: exceptional degree of fear of catastrophic incidences. Yeah, incidents end quote,

640
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 2: and that's a little bit of an ocean nightmare.

641
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 1: Everything that I've read about that was that there was

642
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: a direct result of BP cutting safety in favor of

643
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 1: higher profit margins, and that's what happened. That's what allowed

644
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: this plant to deteriorate and the machinery just didn't work.

645
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: But they traced this explosion. This is an oil refinery explosion.

646
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 1: It had nothing to do with ammonium nitrate. But the

647
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: I think think whatever chemical they put in gas to

648
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: boost the octane level, they turned a machine on that

649
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: does that, and somehow, like all these components to the

650
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 1: gasoline started vaporizing out into the air. It started shooting

651
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: out of this tower because the pressure was overloaded and

652
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: there was so much gas vapor in the air that

653
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 1: somebody had a pickup truck running nearby and it got

654
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: sucked up into the air intake and the engine started revving,

655
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,160
Speaker 1: and that's actually what ignited the whole thing, all of

656
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:33,839
Speaker 1: this gas vapor This pickup truck sucking in gas molecules

657
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: that were just vaporized in the air around it. Crazy

658
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: in Texas City. Again, it's crazy. So you got anything else?

659
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:45,879
Speaker 2: I got nothing else.

660
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to know more about the Texas

661
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:51,280
Speaker 1: City disaster, you can go look that up. I would

662
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 1: strongly recommend reading Sheryl Lower's dwarf for Ross's Changing Lives

663
00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 1: in a Heartbeat Journal article. Also big shout out to

664
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: Fireengineering dot com they had a good one, and then

665
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 1: the Local twelve fifty nine. The Texas City Firefighters Union

666
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: has a really comprehensive overview of the Texas City disaster too,

667
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 1: so maybe check those out for even more details. And

668
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: since totally since I said that, it's time for listener mail.

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00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna call this, uh, well, I'm gonna call

670
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 2: it where Ryan called it. Well, I'm dumb, but I'm

671
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 2: over it. Hey, guys, long time, first time. I thought

672
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 2: i'd tell you. You had me duped for a long time.

673
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 2: When I first started listening to the show, so a

674
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 2: few years ago, and probably for a year after that

675
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 2: first episode, I honestly thought there was a list of

676
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 2: keywords that Josh referred to toward the end of the

677
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 2: episode whenever he says, well, since I said blank, it's

678
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 2: time for listener mail. For an embarrassment. This is very cute.

679
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 2: For an embarrassingly long time, I really thought that the

680
00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 2: blank word was from a predetermined master list, and that

681
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:02,760
Speaker 2: you had revealed that list of words to the audience

682
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:06,760
Speaker 2: in an early episode. Wow, I guess like the magic

683
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 2: word in uh.

684
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:08,760
Speaker 1: Pee Wee's Playhouse.

685
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, was that what it was?

686
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: Yeah? This guy was to really love Peewe's Playhouse.

687
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 2: I started listening to increasingly older episodes and hopes that

688
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,439
Speaker 2: I would hear that list or catch a trend toward

689
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 2: the words used.

690
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: Ye.

691
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 2: Josh's transition with that statement at the end of every

692
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:25,720
Speaker 2: episode is just so smooth.

693
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: Hey, there you go, thanks man.

694
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 2: It wasn't until one episode, when Josh's word was so mundane,

695
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 2: so common it was probably the or if or something

696
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 2: along those lines, that I finally realized there is no list.

697
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 2: I had been fooled.

698
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 1: This random fell from his eyes and he was free. Finally.

699
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 2: Well, since you said scales, those random words are just

700
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 2: that random. Actually felt a bit disappointed when I realized this,

701
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 2: but I actually took some of the mystery out of

702
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 2: the show. But I'm over it now. Whether or not

703
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 2: it's good to admit I had been fooled by this

704
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 2: for a long time. Is up for debate, but been

705
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 2: meaning to tell you about this for a while. I

706
00:39:57,760 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 2: hope you think of me every time Josh transitions to

707
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 2: listener mail from now on, I totally will. Yeah, take

708
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 2: care and keep doing what you're doing because it's a

709
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 2: fantastic show. And since I said show dot dot dot

710
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 2: what that's great? That is from Ryan Peschel.

711
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: Thanks Ryan, Thanks for getting in our heads like that.

712
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 1: Apparently we got in your heads too, so it's only fair,

713
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: don't you think, Chuck.

714
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just right then, I didn't think we had

715
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:23,719
Speaker 2: a listener mail and then look what pops up?

716
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 1: Ryan Peeschel saves the day again, and only Ryan knows

717
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. I just ruined his life again.

718
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 1: He's back in the game. If you want to get

719
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: in touch with us and try to get in our

720
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: heads like Ryan did, so we have to think of

721
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: you every time we say something about listener mail or

722
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 1: what have you, you can write to us, send us

723
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff

724
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app

726
00:40:55,880 --> 00:41:03,240
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,