Talk:Texas City disaster/Archive 1

Archive 1

Trivia

The angel statue on the photo is eerily similare to the Angels of Dr.Who episode "Dont Blink" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.185.28.122 (talk) 05:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Where was it destined

The article is linked to the Texas City offical site.

That site says the ammonium nitrate was destined for war torn Europe.

Also, ammonium nitrate,especially mixed with fuel oil, is highly explosive under pressure. Either "dynamite" etc (as in Oklahoma City) or being battened down in a ship's hold.

Maybe the last paragraph needs a rewrite.

misc

The link hhttp://www.texas-city-tx.org/docs/history/exp.htm

is dead - I have requested a better one from the webmaster there.

I am linking this whole affair onto the Monsanto page

Pdn 23:13, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) pdn

Rewrite

There seemed to be some need for corrections and amplifications here, so I cribbed a number of facts from "City On Fire", and the U.S. Supreme Court decision about the disaster. The article downplayed the chemical as an explosive, which appears rather moot, not to mention inaccurate. In review of some of the other references and links, including ammonium nitrate, there may still be some divergence of opinion as to the comparative dangers of the chemical in its various forms; however the history of major explosions was already there, and there is little doubt about the origins of THIS explosion. Also, the Oppau case reported in City On Fire was much more devastating than indicated in that article ("over 1000 killed" v. "561" casualties). Because this was such a huge loss for firefighters (among others), I also created a separate section for information related to that, and added the Firefighting category marker. The "ship" was an American-made, recently French registered, resolving the ambiguous reference to a "French ship." Unclear what (if any) connection Monsanto might have to this disaster, other than perhaps contributing to the generally unhealthy conditions preceding it, as did dozens of other chemical and oil companies there. Feel free to diddle whatever else you think might need correction. Lupinelawyer 19:03, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have added a couple of extra links today - Jim. Tuesday 18 April 06

Picture

There is a picture available to anyone who chooses to put it in. It is Image:Texas_City_Diagram.jpg 4.235.0.252 14:56, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The resolution of the image is too low to be of much use. --205.157.110.11 19:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Tessenderloo

The 300,000 pounds and 140 tonnes doesn't add up.

--FAdmMatt 18:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

everything within miles

"Massive amounts of burning wreckage ignited everything within miles, including dozens of huge oil storage tanks and other chemical tanks."

I appreciate what is intended, but surely not "everything" within miles was ignited. There must be another way to phrase this. Perhaps there is data available on the number of fires that were ignited? Then it could be written such as:

"Massive amounts of burning wreckage ignited 500 secondary fires within a 4 mile radius, including dozens of huge oil storage tanks and other chemical tanks."

Just a thought. Thanks --203.10.224.59 06:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Atomic Bomb

The Disaster took place two years before the Soviets tested their first atom bomb. The section is not cited but it is hard to believe the US military would have thought at that point the Soviets were capable of a nuclear attack.212.85.13.68 16:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That part is marked as "citation needed", anyway, but I'm not sure it's meant to be inferred that it was a Soviet attack, is it? GCD1 14:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I removed these two sentences associated with nuclear weapons.

A seismologist in Denver, Colorado, initially interpreted the shock waves as an atomic bomb explosion in Texas . The explosion was so large that Strategic Air Command briefly raised the United States defense condition (Defcon) in fear of a nuclear attack .

I can't find evidence of when Defcon was introduced, but I believe it came around in the 1950's. It's absurd to claim that Defcon existed in 1947, much less that the US would invoke it for an industrial accident. Second, it's quite possible that a seismologist misinterpreted the blast as an atomic bomb, but that information has little meaning since a lot of them didn't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing. And that's assuming it actually happened. If someone can come up with a citation that proves me wrong, then I'll be willing to let this remain though it's not very relevant. -- KarlHallowell 09:08, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

It was not at all clear that this was an industrial accident. Coming so soon after the end of WWII, and in a harbour, there was immediate and widespread belief that it was a military attack like Pearl Harbour, possibly by some secret new weapon. Even if they didn't think it was an atomic bomb, people didn't associate "largest non-nuclear explosion ever" with "industrial accident while loading fertilizer"