Fertilizer Plant Ready To Blow In Boston

FOX | 8-7-02 | my favorite headache

[Conservative4Ever]

You don't REALLY beleive that 4500lbs of ammoninum nitrate took down the Murrah building, do you?

Never in a thousand years!!

Red

[philosofy123]

Do you think that is what is killing the wales?

[Steely Tom]

I do. I was about a mile from the Grandcamp when it exploded. The shock wave blew my window and blinds across the room into the opposite wall.

Wow, you were there? Cool.

I remember reading (with morbid fascination) an article about the ship channel explosion in a copy of Popular Science when I was in third grade (1963). It made a permanent impression on me.

I wonder how big the shockwave expanded to? I don't suppose that many who saw it lived to tell the tale.

(steely)

[OReilly]

I was about a mile from the Grandcamp when it exploded. The shock wave blew my window and blinds across the room into the opposite wall.

The surface area of your window was probably about 10 sq ft... and the surface area of a gas storage tank might be 10,000 sq ft or maybe more.

I would want good security near those tanks.

[OReilly]

Should have been To: Rustbucket; Steely Tom

[Redhd2]

I wonder how big the shockwave expanded to? I don't suppose that many who saw it lived to tell the tale.

I can testify to this. I was sitting in my 4th grade classroom in Port Arthur when the shock hit the building, Tyrrell School about 100 miles away. The teacher was visibly shaken as we all were.

[OReilly]

The difference in fertilizer amount (between the Grandcamp and something this size) is about 1000 times and the difference in surface area (between a window and the frontal area of a gas storage tank) is about 1000 times. I sure hope someone in Boston realizes how vulnerable that tank farm is (and not just from surface explosions).

[rustbucket]

Wow, you were there? Cool.

I was getting dressed when the explosion occurred. I was getting ready for the afternoon session at Danforth Elementary School, where I went to school. Fortunately, I had leaned over to get my shoes when the blast knocked the window out right above me. Everything was covered with broken glass. I think some kids in the morning session at Danforth were hurt because some of the walls of the school collapsed.

My father worked at one of the refineries. He fought fires for two days straight and passed out caught in a barbed wire fence after running from an exploding tank. Some people driving by picked him up and took him to their house. He was reported as missing over the radio but was OK.

Dad had been invited by his boss to go down to the docks to watch the Grandcamp fire. Fortunately, Dad was too busy to go. The boss's body washed up in Galveston Bay a week later.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Do you think that is what is killing the wales?

That's prolly a giant squid just offshore, they can grow to 60 feet long or more.

[Maelstrom]

Update me please Bump

[Rockpile]

You know that anchor that's now at sea-front park in Texas City? Didn't it get thrown like a half-mile or something?

[rustbucket]

The 1.5-ton anchor of the Grandcamp was blown over 10,000 ft. That's roughly 2 miles. A 30-ft long drill pipe was blown two miles; it hit a tank at the Pan Am refinery. I heard tales of people being killed at the refineries by big pieces of metal falling from the sky.

[Lancey Howard]

Fertilizer Plant Ready To Blow In Boston

Don't let Clinton hear about this.

[Yardstick]

Wow, that Texas City thing sounds like one incredible explosion. I wonder how much energy was released?

The story about your dad reminds me a little of the Exxon oil refinery fire in Baton Rouge, Louisiana back in Christmas, 1986 (or thereabout). During the day, half the sky was obscured by black oil smoke, and at night the blaze was a supernatural column of boiling flame -- it was quite a sight. We went out to the levee, set up lawn chairs and watched it from across the river.

The funny thing was that it's a Christmans tradition in Baton Rouge to build bonfires out on the levee -- big elaborate wooden structures in the shape of houses and animals and stuff -- which they then set ablaze on Christmas Eve. Well, as you can imagine, the Exxon refinery stole the show that year.

[Leisler]

Ted could just plop his naked arse on it and smother the fire. Of course the building would be crushed flat...

[barker]

Or Kansas City.

The blast that killed the firefighters years ago? We live about 18 miles from where that happened and felt the blast. Good friends lived about a mile away and were almost thrown out of bed. They thought their house had exlpoded.

[ravingnutter]

The Explosion, 50 Years Later, Texas City Remembers

Photos included.

[Yardstick]

Thanks!

[MotleyGirl70]

Kramer: "I love Beefareno, what a wonderful cuisineo, I love Beefareno, fit for King and Queeno."

"RUSTY!"