Thread: West, TX
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74-911 74-911 is offline
Bollweevil
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Fulshear, Texanistan
Posts: 3,363
Although this explosion was really bad, fortunately it is not in the same ballpark as the Texas City explosion in 1947 - killed 581 and leveled the town.

Texas City Disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Grandcamp was a recently re-activated 437-foot-long (133 m) Liberty ship. Originally named the SS Benjamin R. Curtis in Los Angeles in 1942, the ship served in the Pacific theatre and was mothballed in Philadelphia after World War II. In a Cold War gesture, the ship was assigned to the French Line to assist in the rebuilding of Europe. Along with ammonium nitrate—a very common cargo on the high seas—it was carrying small arms ammunition, machinery, and bales of sisal twine on the deck. Another ship in the harbor, the SS High Flyer, was docked about 600 feet (200 m) away from the SS Grandcamp. The High Flyer contained an additional 961 tons of ammonium nitrate[1] and 1,800 tons of sulfur. The ammonium nitrate in the two ships and in the adjacent warehouse was fertilizer on its way to farmers in Europe. The Grandcamp had arrived from Houston, Texas, where the port authority did not permit loading of ammonium nitrate."
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Last edited by 74-911; 04-18-2013 at 07:39 AM..
Old 04-18-2013, 07:37 AM
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