The Grandcamp explosion destroyed the Monsanto Chemical Company plant and resulted in the ignition of refineries and chemical tanks on the waterfront. “The scouts got there before the main part of the Army got there from Fort Sam Houston, so I wound up carrying bedpans, blankets, and dead bodies,” he says. The disaster killed at least 518 people, including all but one member of the Texas City fire department. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fertilizer-explosion-kills-581-in-texas. Urbanic said his scoutmasters were mostly World War II veterans, and he and his friends — some of whom were in JROTC — had prepared mentally to go fight overseas if the war had lasted that long. A second ship, the SS High Flyer, carrying sulfur and more ammonium nitrate, exploded 15 hours later, killing two more. After that failed, the fire was too big to control by the time the Texas City Volunteer Fire Department arrived, and the captain, Charles de Guillebon, gave the order to abandon ship at 8:30 a.m. Spectators gathered around the ship, now producing an odd, yellow-orange smoke. The anchor belonged to the S.S. Grandcamp, a French cargo ship, and was flung across the city in an explosion on April 16, 1947. Houston, like most big cities, is kind of ugly when you get up close. They received a total of $17 million in 1955. “We got about half a block away, then the scout executive waved us back.” Urbanic spent the rest of the evening at Fort Crockett. It was one of the deadliest industrial accidents in U.S. history. The son of London music hall entertainers, young ...read more. Even 20 years out, national papers like the Chicago Tribune ran stories to commemorate the anniversary of the disaster, but despite the unthinkable human toll, the Texas City Disaster remains a footnote in American history. He’s matter-of-fact, but his voice still carries an almost defiant pride when he talks about his troop’s contribution. This is how a French ship came to be docked at Texas City; in the six months before the explosion, Monsanto had shipped more than 75,000 tons of FGAN, and some of it went to Europe to help restore farmland destroyed during the war, Ferling writes. Houston Public Media is supported with your gifts to the Houston Public Media Foundation and is licensed to the University of Houston, , deadliest industrial accident in American history, Robert Reich: America’s Real Divide Isn’t Between Red And Blue — But Oligarchy And Democracy, City Is Planning Major Changes To Busy Southwest Houston Corridor, Free Towing Program Expands To More Houston-Area Freeways, How Music Therapists Helped A Mother Connect With The Newborn She Still Hasn’t Met, Harris County Is Breaking Early Voting Records. Lane, a Monsanto employee, said he “saw scores of bodies as I left my office.” Ben Lapham, a sailor on the adjacent High Flyer, recalled at the the time of the blast that “it was like night for a minute or more. One real estate broker reflected that the town was not left with enough survivors or skilled labor to “erect one building in a year.”. The Grandcamp explosion destroyed the Monsanto Chemical Companyplant and resulted in ignition of refineries and chemical tank… However, the precautions used in its transport became far more lax in the post-war years. The local telephone operators’ union, which was on strike the day of the explosion, returned to help. Nearly all of the survivors were seriously injured. Every April, on the Saturday closest to the anniversary of the disaster, as many living survivors as can make it gather for a group picture in front of the museum on Sixth Street. The tremendous blast produced a 15-foot (4.5 m) wave that was detectable nearly 100 miles (160 km) from the Texas shoreline. Thames became fascinated by his grandfather’s story and is developing a feature film about the disaster, which he hopes to shoot in late 2018. Another ship, the High Flyer, which was carrying similar cargo, was pushed completely across the harbor. We remember Mount St. Helens because it’s not every day a volcano erupts on American soil, but deadly industrial accidents are quite common. Nearly 600 people And when the crew of the Grandcamp tried to fight the fire with steam and not water, the hold became precisely the kind of high-temperature, high-pressure vessel that accelerates the chemical reaction that led to the explosion. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. If you hop on one of those highways, I-45, and start driving southeast, eventually the landscape starts to peek out from under the blanket of urban development. On the morning of April 16, smoke was spotted deep within one of the Grandcamp‘s holds. “So they were standing there in the building with the side of it fallen down, still talking on the phone.”. “The common thread I found during my interviews was that we were hardened and steeled by watching World War II movies, watching people being pulled out of rubble, cities being destroyed, buildings on fire, so our attitude was, ‘OK, it’s our turn. On that day, Bob Roten was just 13 years old and in the seventh grade. In 2005, an explosion at the BP refinery killed 15 and injured 180. Rinse Your Sinuses With Shampoo Or Probiotics? Sitting on Galveston Bay, Texas City is home to fewer than 50,000 people, a few oil refineries, and a sizable industrial port. Welcome to The South Week at The Ringer.