Daily Almanac-April 16, 2010
The port of Texas City, Texas was virtually wiped off the map by the worst industrial accident in American history on April 16, 1947 when an old World War II Liberty Ship flying the French flag exploded at the dock. The SS Grandcamp was laden with tons of ammonium nitrate for use as fertilizer in Europe as well as some small arms ammunition and miscellaneous cargo. The crew spotted smoke from the hole shortly after 8 am and tried to fight the fire by smothering it in steam to preserve the cargo. All attempts failed as crowds gathered on shore to watch the drama. Water around the ship began to boil, her hull glowed with heat and bulged from the pressure of the internal chemical reactions. At 9:10 the ship exploded leveling more than 1000 buildings, including the near-by Monsanto Chemical Plant and ignited secondary fires and explosions at refineries and storage tanks across the port. The ship’s hull became 6,300 tons of red-hot shrapnel traveling at supersonic speeds. A wave 5 meters high was generated that was felt far out into the Gulf of Mexico. Windows were smashed and people knocked to the ground in Galveston ten miles away and buildings shook from Houston to New Orleans. The entire Texas City Fire Department was among the hundreds killed in the initial blast meaning secondary fires and explosions continued as emergency teams from across the region rushed to the city. And the disaster was not yet over. The initial blast set fire to the nearby ship High Flyer carrying an additional 930 tons of ammonium nitrate. As the fire raged, crews desperately tried to cut the ship from her moorings, but 15 hours after the first blast she blew up destroying the near-by Wilson B. Keane and much of what was left of the port. Fires continued to burn for a week. The carnage and destruction were almost unimaginable. One observer who had seen both compared the wreckage of the city to that of Nagasaki after the A-bomb. And like the radiation from the bomb, the pollution from burning chemicals and petroleum products was so pervasive that it undoubtedly affected the health and longevity of survivors and even those who located in the region after the explosion. Officially 581 people were counted as dead including 405 positively identified, 63 unidentified remains, and 113 missing and presumed literally vaporized by the explosion or completely incinerated. The actual death toll was undoubtedly higher including non-resident sea men in the port, large numbers of casual laborers and their families with no permanent residence in the city, and transients. Over 5,000 people were injured, and almost 1,800 hospitalized across the region. More than 500 homes were destroyed leaving at least 2,000 homeless. More than 1,000 vehicles were damaged-most destroyed, and as were 320 railroad freight cars. The port and industrial core of the city were destroyed. Property damage was estimated at over $100 million in pre-inflation dollars. Of that fire insurance claims were settled for about $4 million and another $1 million was privately raised for relief, much of it by Galveston mobster Sam Maceo with the assistance of celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Phil Harris, and Ann Sheridan. The first-ever class action law suit against the Federal Government for negligence was thrown out by the Supreme Court who held that the government could not be liable for acts of omission. In response to public outrage Congress authorized some relief and about $17 million dollars in claims were paid out by 1957. Most destroyed businesses, including the port facility, chemical plants, and refineries were privately re-built and often expanded at a cost of another $100 million or so. In March of 2005 one of those rebuilt plants, albeit greatly expanded and modernized, revisited horror and destruction on the city when a leak from an isomerzation tank released petroleum distillates which vaporized and were ignited by a running pick-up truck. Fifteen workers were killed and 170 injured. And the beat goes on.