Yep. My brother-in-laws uncle became a certified mortician that day in the number of bodies he handled.

Exactly what I was thinking... It must have been like the blitz 😞

It had to be absolutely horrific. It sounds like he was suffering from PTSD. It's too bad that that mental health issue was not understood at the time.

Bless your grandfather, and may his name always bring a smile to those who knew him every time they hear it.

Sounds like PTSD to me, sounds exactly like me

We moved to LaMarque from LA when I was a teenager. In my hometown, we were very far from the plants, so I had never experienced the mid week siren testing. I was 14 the first time I heard it, and thought it was the end of the world. Only once I started school, did I learn about this. Seeing all of the memorial spots near the dike made it hit home just how bad it was. My best friend lives right down the road from Amoco, so I always worry about another incident on this scale.

@@Thefruitspeaks I lived in Texas City until I was 13. The weekly sirens were always creepy!

My friend’s uncle has his photography featured in a book about the disaster. I want to say it was published in the last ten years. His dad and her granddad (brothers) were working at their family gas/service station. I believe they were also both volunteer fire fighters. Dad had been sent to the island to get a part needed for a customer’s car, so he couldn’t answer the fire callout. He was on the Galveston Causeway when the first explosion blew. Instead of going to the docks (which at that point pretty much didn’t exist), he ended up fighting fires further out caused by the flying, burning debris. His brother (my friend’s grandad) hurried home to check on his wife and their kids. Flying debris had missed their house and car be inches.

@@ItsJustLisa WOW! I know a lot of people with that kind of trauma don't like talking about those things, but I bet the stories were awe inspiring and horrific at the same time.

I've never heard of this (I'm in UK), thanks so much All of you for your personal family stories. Kindest wishes.

Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. ❤

Awwwww😢

Ammonium perchlorate was at the heart of the explosion in Henderson Nevada in 1988 at Pepco. I had interviewed for a job there twice and the second time was for an interview in their sewage plant manufacturing operation. Instead I decided to honor my commitment to my fiance and move to Australia. 3 weeks later the place was gone. Viewing that footage sent shivers running through my body. That explosion was determined to be caused by a discarded cigarette. Amazing how many disasters occur via discarded cancer sticks. Why they are not banned is beyond me.

@@jayjaynella4539 Like most everyone, I've seen the footage of the Pepcon explosion. It's really frightening. The only saving grace in that situation was that the plant was situated in the desert. If the plant had been located in for example, Los Vegas, the death toll might have been enormous. As it was, I believe two employees were killed. May they Rest in Peace. I'm glad that you didn't have to witness the disaster first-hand.

@@jayjaynella4539 Here's a mind-blowing revelation for everyone. How about not hiring people who smoke at job sites that require you to be around explosive material. "Oh? It says here that you are a smoker? Your job application has been denied. Best of luck on your future endeavors."

I was thinking about how similar this sounded to the Halifax explosion as I was listening.

So sad

Thank God. I wld pray for all those innocent, unsuspecting ppl. Only one thing came out of this disaster, Monsanto Co. corrupt to this day, had a set back 🙏 to the workers.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oOB0dpaasMi4qo0.html

it fills you with a sense of doom, knowing what’s going to happen to these people, almost before they do

There is a book about the Texas City Explosion at my local library , but don't recall the title.

Same & from SWLA

The Beirut was one of the largest non-nuclear man-made explosions 1.1 Kilo Tons!

I can't even imagine how terrifying it must have been to live there during that time. I knew about the Texas City disaster all my life because I grew up in Texas. I did not however know about it blowing airplanes out of the sky or blowing out windows in Galveston which I never considered to be that close. Amazing what you learn along the way.

It's such a popular explosive among militant groups because it's so easy to obtain the ingredients, especially in regions with a lot of farmland. Thank you for sharing your story, Patricia.

Makes good homemade rocket propellant too... called "candy propellant" because it's made much the same way as one would make hard candy... very dangerous though because it involves melting the sugar and ammonium nitrate together then casting it. A lot of people have blown themselves up trying to make it. Much safer ways of doing it using powdered materials and blending them then packing them into a casing and nozzle.

@@tjo1976 Well, the blast was about 3 kilotons, IIRC, which is about 1/5 the blast that leveled Hiroshima, or 1/7 what they dropped on Nagasaki. So yup... OL J R :)

@@scrounder Except ammonium nitrate fertilizer now is chemically combined with other chemicals to make it useless as an explosive... has been that way for years. Later! OL J R :)

Isaac's Storm, excellent documentary about the 1900 storm. the explosion registered on the Richter scale in Colorado, if i recall correctly. not surprising that glass broke in Beaumont. forgive me if i repeat myself, i live with brain damage.

Me too, I second that. The 1900 hurricane. Very interesting.

Holy crap, that just looks the sheer power of it..

Slightly off topic but my dad felt the 1985 Mexico City earthquake in his inner loop Houston office and I felt the 1989 Loma Prieto earthquake in my Los Angeles office. It’s stunning how far and how quickly waves move - how strong they are.

I read a book about the hurricane. I think it was called Isaac storm. Excellent read

I just commented on another reply that when we moved to LaMarque, and I heard that siren for the first time, I about lost my mind.

Made it so you can sue the Govt, but you never win

One of the events which changed Galveston's destiny, and perhaps the biggest, was the Great Storm, about 1900, I believe.

Scary thing is something like this could happen anytime at any port.

Same thing happened in the Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada disaster in World War 1... a couple of ships hauling ammonium nitrate and explosive ordnance for the war collided and caught fire and ran aground near the waterfront. A lot of spectators showed up to watch the disaster, they were killed instantly when the ships detonated. It leveled the waterfront and business section of town, but a lot of people had left or been evacuated or the death toll would have been much higher. There was a train dispatcher who remained at his post despite the order to leave-- he stayed on to get the train coming into town, loaded with hundreds of people, stopped before it got into the station since it was headed right for the station he worked at which was inside the danger zone. He successfully got the train stopped outside the danger zone but he was killed when the ship blew up. Most of the waterfront area was severely damaged, along with the rest of the city. An air blast shock wave rolled across the river into housing on the other side of the river and destroyed many homes and buildings, and then a tsunami wave caused by the explosion rolled across the river and inundated the area, causing further damage. The worst thing was, many thousands of people outside the actual blast danger area were blinded or maimed or critically, sometimes fatally, injured by flying debris and flying glass from shattered windows. The air blast wave took up to 2-3 minutes or more (since it travels at the speed of sound) to reach these surrounding areas which were too distant to be directly flattened by the blast, which was plenty of time for people to rush to their windows to observe the spectacle of the enormous fireball and mushroom cloud (which accompanies ALL large explosions regardless of whether they're a chemical explosion or nuclear explosion) not realizing the dangerous shock wave was heading straight for them at 740 mph... when it arrived it was powerful enough to shatter windows and damage buildings and hurl debris through the air, injuring and killing many people and permanently blinding many from their eyes being put out by razor sharp glass blown in their face from shattered windows. All these injuries and maiming and blindness was TOTALLY avoidable if people had followed "tornado protocol" and sought shelter in windowless interior rooms or other places well away from the danger of flying glass, instead of gawking through the window at the explosion a few miles away... Same is true today as it was then... why I taught my daughter "duck and cover" before she ever started school... ANY large explosion, from a train or truck or ship or airline crash or terrorist bomb or chemical plant or factory explosion, etc will produce the exact same effects-- and being a few miles away is just as dangerous because you can still be well within the blast wave danger radius from shattered windows and hurled objects, while being outside the "blow all the buildings to smithereens" danger zone much closer to the explosion... and still far enough away that the blast wave arrives up to 2-3 minutes later, plenty of time for people to rush to windows to stare at the spectacle and get caught by the blast wave... OL J R :)

The story about the criminal was used in an episode of the radio drama "Tales of the Texas Rangers".

I don’t doubt there was genetic damage, given the monsanto plant explosion being involved. I am curious though, what physical expression’s of the damage do you mean/have experienced?

Same thing happened in Halifax, Nova Scotia during WW1 when a ship blew up in the harbour.

@@Patchdee1 And Beirut 2 years ago.

Wow

When I saw the Beirut video on the news I saw orange smoke and knew it was ammonium nitrate.

You are wonderful, your grammar better than most of my friends who only speak/write English! I have never been to Argentina, but my favorite teacher of all time came to California from Argentina and she was so homesick, she would tell us stories all the time about it. She was the sweetest person, and we introduced her to my friends single uncle in the hope they would fall in love and get married and she would stay here (we were only 4th graders!!). Believe it or not, it worked, and they DID fall in love, and married! Her name was Elizabeth Tatum, and she used to come into the hospital where my mom worked, to have a baby, practically every year! This was so long ago, but I've always thought Argentina must be a wonderful place because of her stories, that stayed with me all my long life.

Halloo, South Africa, from New Mexico!!

@@HunterPeale Hallo there, New Mexico! 😊

don’t forget and hopefully learn from it, but I am not optimistic about that.

You are not alone, i think some of us came from a parallel universe, and are heavily "Mandela effected. "

Galveston County is fierce.

To be sure the captain attempted to quell it with steam hoses pumping into the hold, which would work in an ordinary fire by starving the oxygen with water vapor. As he pointed out ammonium nitrate needs no oxygen in such circumstances.

Assuming by defendant, you mean the US government?

Correct. The US government was the defendant in this case.

I heard that, too and the CCs showed “Dulleth”. 😂

Your dad was a hero.

You mean They died aiding the Union win the war don't you? (😝)🇺🇲!!!!

@@silversurfer3202 Lol , yeah you could look at it that way .

Boohoo a group of traitors get blown up for supplying a war effort to preserve slavery for a bunch of wealthy elites.

@@silversurfer3202 funny you mention that - they were never able to prove that it wasn't intentional/sabotage

More blood on Lincoln's hands.

You should check out areas like the dike. There's ship propellers, anchors, and all kinds of debris that was left where it landed as a memorial. It's very sobering.

@@Thefruitspeaks Thanks. We're always looking for things to do when I come to Houston to visit.

Isaac's Storm is a great documentary about the hurricane which flattened galveston in 1900. afterward the seawall was built, and though the city part of the island can still flood, it won't be steam rollered again. we mark time on the gulf coast by storms; before or after Katrina, Carla, etc. one of the few houses which survived in texas city was owned by a railroad owner, the frame was railroad track, the walls brick. corrections welcome, it's been awhile since i was there.

There are some terrifying stories from the Storm of 1900. The orphanage that tethered themselves to each other... I could only imagine the horror of finding them on the beach afterwards. That always stuck with me as a kid.

It is pronounced that way if you have an American accent. This gentleman has a British accent and therefore pronounces things differently. So what? Could you correctly pronounce the sometimes strange names of the cities in Great Britain?