Beyond the Flames – ‘Any Seemingly Routine Fire Might Be Your Last’

In part two of our five- week series looking at the work fires in American history, our look at the nation’s worst industrial fire leads us to Texas City, Tex., a port town located on the Gulf of Mexico between the Ports of Galveston and Houston. The port is the 14th-ranked port in the United States in terms of annual cargo, making it a bustling town of cargo ships, oil tankers, and millions in cargo and merchandise, boosting a massive local economy.
In 1947, two years removed from the end of the Second World War, Texas City was experiencing a major part of the post-war economic boom that much of the country was taking part in. The city’s roughly 18,000 residents witnessed a huge increase in the use of the city’s port, and the local economy was booming like no time in the city’s history.
April 16, 1947 began just like most days in the port – ships were moving in and out of the harbor by the numbers, with the constant flow of products both arriving at the port for distributions and the goods leaving the Great Plains for shipment. The previous day, the S.S. Grandcamp, a 437-foot cargo ship, was loaded with 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly flammable product used in fertilizers and explosives.
The ship decided to dock for the evening for a scheduled departure the following day.
At about 8 a.m. on April 16, a passerby on the port’s docks saw smoke showing from the hull of the Grandcamp. The captain of the ship was notified, and his men found a small fire in the holding area of the ship. The captain decided that in order to extinguish the fire the crew should enclose the area which the fire was found and incorporate the ship’s steam system to suppress and extinguish the fire, as extinguishing with water would ruin the ship’s cargo.
However, the steaming of the fire failed to extinguish it, and by 8:30, the pressure caused from the oxygen and the cargo hull were too overwhelming and blow the doors open on the cargo deck, sending a cloud of smoke billowing into the air. It was at this time that the Texas City Volunteer Fire Department was notified by someone and 27 members of the 28 member force, as well as four of the department’s apparatus, arrived on scene to help extinguish the blaze.
At the same time, a large crowd of residents and bystanders were beginning to rather along Texas City’s docks, as the fire was now causing a huge cloud of bright orange and red smoke and fire. The ship was so hot that the water from the firefighters’ hoses immediately turned to vapor once it struck the ship. At 9:12, the fire had finally reached its boiling point.
In a matter of seconds, the small town of Texas City would be shook with an explosion powerful enough to break building windows and knock residents to their feet in Houston, nearly 40 miles away. The explosion was so powerful it sent over 6,000 tons of metal shards flying, killing hundreds of bystanders and resulting in the destruction of at least 1,000 buildings in the immediate area.
The explosion set off numerous fires, and also resulted in the destruction of the nearby Montsanto Chemical Company plant nearby, leaving a number of burning fires and debris. A second boat loaded with the same dangerous ammonium nitrate was located in the port as well, and the explosion from the SS Grandcamp resulted in a fire igniting on that ship as well.
Crews spent hours attempting to cut the ship free of it’s anchor and tug it towards the center of the bay, but to no avail. Approximately 15 hours following the initial explosion, the second ship exploded with much of the same force as the first blast, sending even more debris and fire throughout the port.
At the time of the initial explosion, the 27 members of the Texas City Volunteer Fire Department were located on the dock, less than 100 feet from the Grandcamp itself. Body parts of the 27 members were never found with recognizable features, as all of them as well as the crew members of the Grandcamp were believed to be disintegrated by the force of the explosion. The loss remained the highest total of firefighters lost in a single day incident for over 50 years, until the loss of 343 firefighters on Sept. 11, 2001.
The only member of the department that had not responded to the initial incident, Fred Dowdy, responded to the scene after the explosion, and was the only surviving member of the fire department. He helped initially coordinate response from surrounding departments, many of whom showed up to assist without being requested.
In all, the official casualty totals were 567 people killed and over 5,000 people injured, 1,700 of which were admitted to over 20 local hospitals as far as 40 miles away. The Disaster destroyed over 500 residences, numerous businesses, and caused damage to over 1,100 vehicles, as well as the complete destruction of 362 freight cars that were in the port at the time of the explosion. Estimates place the damage from the blasts in the range of approximately $100 million, over $980 million in 2011.
Much like the Great Chicago fire of 1871, however, the 1947 Texas City disaster can be attributed largely to the success of the city today. Its port was rebuilt and is now one of the most important ports in North America, with millions of dollars in cargo passing through its waters each year. The disaster also contributed largely to the stricter regulations in transporting cargo in ships, especially ones with dangerous natures.
Arguably the most lasting result of the disaster to the fire service was the development of regional response plans to large scale disasters. Prior to the Texas City incident, most departments did not have agreements with neighboring departments to have procedures in place to deal with large scale incidents in high-vulnerability areas.
Thanks to Texas City, areas all over the United States now have strict response plans with specific details regarding how to deal with an emergency of such caliber.
Time heals slowly, but the best way to move on from disasters in the fire service is to learn from the mistakes and keep a tragedy like Texas City from happening in the future. The memory of the 27 volunteers lives on, forever a reminder that any seemingly routine fire, whether residential or industrial, might be your last.
Knoll, 19, of Eldora, can be contacted by email at bknolljr4cmcherald@yahoo.com. He is a student at Rowan University.