first thing that came to mind
Posted on 12/06/2017 5:48:01 AM PST by billorites
I was there as a child in 1947 getting ready for the afternoon session of Danforth Elementary School (there were so many kids, they divided us into morning and afternoon sessions).
I was getting dressed in my bedroom upstairs. The window in my room faced the Texas City harbor and the refineries. We lived about a mile from the Grandcamp. All of a sudden my window, glass, blinds, and all blew straight over my bed and into the opposite wall. I had bent down to get my shoes, so the window didn't hit me. Outside there was a big column of dark smoke rising from the harbor. There was glass all over my bed.
My father worked at a little oil company across the road from the harbor area. He was reported as missing over the radio a day or so later, which, of course, upset my mother no end. She didn't tell my little brother and me, but had some neighbor ladies look after us for a while. Actually, after the explosion my father had been fighting tank fires for more than 24 hours straight and had run from a collapsing burning tank and had passed out or was resting in a fence by a roadway. Some people on the roadway found him and took him home with them. He was OK, but other people didn't know where he was and reported him missing.
My grandfather (my mother's father) and my mother's uncle drove in from Houston in the uncle's Cadillac and had gotten through the police lines around the city by my grandfather claiming to be a doctor. They picked up my mother, my little brother, and me, and drove us to Houston. Mother had left a note at our apartment for my father, in case he was OK, telling him where we had gone.
Before the explosion my father's boss had asked him to go with him to the harbor area to look at the fire. My father was busy up on a tank and didn't go with him. The boss's body washed up a week later.
It was a scary time. Some of the walls at my elementary school collapsed during the explosion because of the shock wave. I don't remember for sure if some kids had been hurt or killed at the school. I ended up eventually staying at my grandmother's house (my father's mother) in Austin and temporarily going to school there for weeks.
My grandfather was a six month old infant when the Explosion happened. His mother used to put him in a bassinet on the front porch of their house on the Dartmouth side of the harbour.
On the morning of the Explosion, for some reason, she didn’t.
The front porch was blown to splinters.
I was just about to Google that, thanks.
According to Wiki, air. (She was unladen)
Yes, would one credit one's senses ( I still have some). This of the Canadian mainstream media. They have got hold of many photographs and indeed showing the belated monuments to the dead. They have praised Boston lavishly.
Perhaps there is no way they can vilify President Trump over the explosion. Still on they go, ad nauseum every day. They are obsessed. I do believe the average working class Canadian lets it go over their heads. They scurry down to Hortons coffee shop to discuss the latest weather. Here in Ontario it just got a winter wonderland - or whatever curse some might use. Lots of it.
What is the name of this book? I wouldn’t mind checking it out.
Here you go!
The great Halifax explosion : a World War I story of treachery, tragedy, and extraordinary heroism
I will have to. You dont get everything in a one hour cable show! :)
Hurricanes, blizzards, etc. are scary in that they are just nature doing what it does. There’s no malevolence and also no bargaining.
Wow. Great new info i didn’t know. Always love learning something new. Thanks
That’s pretty damn scary. I must read it. If you recommend. It seems you do :)
For our human minds, that’s viewing the present. Thought it’s not lol. Mind boggling!
Wow. Thanks man. Talk about not too stable!
first thing that came to mind
Picric acid is what is used in percussion caps for bullets. It detonates on impact. As someone said, it is very unstable.
You can make it with metal filings and stale urine but that is not the commercial process.
It amazes and sometimes scares me what people on this board know :)
At least you’re the good guys.
Interesting. I had family at Alvin at that time. Not so near but they certainly noted it in the family stories.
Not to worry, just don’t make us angry. You wouldn’t like us when we are angry.
Never pick a fight with an old man. he has very little to lose.
I wouldn’t pick a fight with you because you sound like you know more than enough to be dangerous plus i’m a wuss :)
But I pray you got lots of years in you wherever you are!
Thank you!
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