Community Chat

[Kachina624]

The explosion in Beruit today reminded me of a similar, though possibly worse, accident in the US, now largely forgotten.  It's been called the worse industrial accident in our history.  I bet you'd have to search long and hard to find anyone who remembers it.

In 1947, a French ship docked at pier in Texas City, Texas with a cargo of ammonium nitrate*, a fertilizer, exploded killing over 500 people and causing immeasurable damage and destruction.  This is the same substance thought to have exploded in Beruit.

Here is a report of the incident.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster  

Years ago, I was with a small group at work in Houston having a touchy-feely type of training session when an older woman, thought to be a bit odd, spoke up and confessed to have been in the explosion.  She was working in an office with windows overlooking the ship that exploded.  She made her way through bodies, broken glass and litter out of the building and somehow got home several miles away in shock, only to discover one of her legs was almost severed.  How she lived through this was a mystery.  Someone took her the the hospital in a car.  She had many surgeries and was eventually able to walk.

We listened to her her description of the horror and destruction for a long time in silence.  Nobody knew she'd been through this as she'd never spoken of it before.  She was kind of a loner.  It was a fascinating recitation of her experience.

NOTE:  Ammonium nitrate was also used as an explosive in the Oklahoma City bombing 

[Anonymous032819]

Yes, ammonium nitrate is highly  explosive.

It's the main component of ANFO.

Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil.

Just look at what it did to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, when Timothy McVeigh took a U-Haul truck full of it, and set it off.

[Kachina624]

@Anonymous032819    Did you see the footnote on the thread?

[Love my grandkids]

@Kachina624 I recall seeing a documentary on either Discovery or some other channel years ago about this.

This lady's account is fascinating being a first person experience. How horrible for her but wonderful that she survived. I would *guess* that the experience might have had long term effects on her, poor lady.