Safety Assessment Program Evaluator Student Manual

CA Emergency Mgmt. Agency Safety Assessment Program Evaluator Manual April 2011Photo courtesy Texas City Fireman‟s UnionFigure 2-18 – Explosion and Fire, 1947 Texas City, TXIn 1947, a former Liberty ship was carrying 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, which was packedin paper bags and mixed with wax and other materials to help prevent hardening. Another shipin the harbor also carried ammonium nitrate. The first ship caught on fire, and firefighters wereunable to put the blaze out. The first ship exploded with such force that two aircraft flyingoverhead were destroyed, and a steel frame factory building three miles away suffered heavydamage. A surface wave was created by the explosion in the harbor that resembled a tsunami andcaused extensive damage there. The explosion also set the other ship in the harbor on fire, and it,too, eventually exploded. The incident killed 600 people, which included the entire Texas Cityvolunteer fire department. One hundred of the casualties were never found. Fiery debris raineddown onto the town of Texas City and set off fires. This incident was one of the largestexplosion disasters in U. S. history.Figure 2-19 shows the damage to the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City after a 1.5 tonbomb was set off by terrorists. The building itself suffered extensive damage, and due to loss oflateral load capacity became extremely hazardous to survivors and rescuers alike. At one point,the wind speed increased to the extent that rescuers had to evacuate the building until the windsreduced, due to the building remnants being so fragile. Neighboring buildings suffered rackingdamage, and one had its concrete roof deck disconnected from the rest of the structure, where itthreatened to fail and to pancake the rest of the floors in the building. The destroyed cars in theforeground have been marked with orange paint for tracking purposes.43