“It was the last. We thought it was Judgement Day” –Jewel Turner on seeing Texas City after the explosion
“When I got there, they were loading bodies into dump trucks and ambulances. I kept searching, but I couldn't find Dad,” remembers Leonard T. Belk. “There was so much destruction, so much death. It's hard to describe the sorrow.”
Belk was describing the horror of April 7, 1947: the day that Texas City, Texas was almost obliterated. Seventy years later, many do not remember the deadliest industrial accident the nation has every experienced.
The families of Texas City who lost relatives, friends, or neighbors, will never forget.
The day was a like any other at this Galveston County deep water port city. A French Liberty ship, “Grandcamp” was tied at the dock. Its hold contained sisal twine, peanuts, drilling equipment, some small ammunition and 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
In agriculture, ammonium nitrate is a well-known fertilizer. Its other use is as an explosive for construction, mining and in quarries. It was also the compound Timothy McVeigh chose to blow the federal building in Kansas City in 1995.
Crew members were in the hold loading more 100 pound bags of the white fertilizer pellets when they smelled smoke. In the stack of the bags, smoke was drifting out. Water available in the hold and fire extinguishers had no effect. The smoke was getting thick and overwhelming, the crew abandoned the hold.
It was decided to batten down the hatches, cover them in tarps and turn off the ventilation system and turn on the steam system. They didn’t want to damage the cargo by spraying it with water. The crew removed the small arms ammunition.
The heat grew, the ship’s whistle sounded and the Texas City Volunteer Fire Department was called. The telephone operators were on strike, but the firefighters were summoned by other means. A fire boat from Galveston was requested.
At 8:30 am, the compressed steam, and pressure from the burning fertilizer, blew the hatch covers from Hold 4. A golden yellow flame producing orange smoke rose far into the morning sky. The fire department hosed down the deck but the intense heat quickly dissipated the water into steam. Shortly after 9:00 am an explosion happened aboard the ship with a force so powerful that it knocked two sightseeing airplanes from the air. Those on deck, firefighters and crew, perished on the spot, their bodies destroyed. The explosion was heard 150 miles away. The nearby Monsanto Chemical plant had 450 employees, 145 dying due to the explosion, the plant destroyed. Nearly 6,350 tons of steel shrapnel from the ship rained down on the dock and on Texas City causing further death and damage. A fifteen-foot wave, which was detected 100 miles offshore, sent injured and dead into the water. The ship’s anchor was thrown two miles away burying itself ten feet in the ground at the Pan American refinery. In Galveston, the concussion knocked residents off their feet and shattered windows downtown.
Three small medical clinics could not handle the many injured, the city auditorium became an improvised trauma center. The seriously injured were taken to major hospitals up to fifty miles away.
The attention on the dock was centered on the “Grandcamp”, but there were several other ships still moored nearby. The “Highflyer” was adjacent to the “Grandcamp”. The explosion severed mooring lines to the “Highflyer”, now heavily damaged. As the day became night, the “Highflyer” crew noticed smoke coming from its hold. Tugboats tried to tow the ship out to sea. The anchor chains were cut but they were still unable to move the ship. At 1:00 am, April 17, flames were shooting from the “Highflyer’s” holds. Tugboats cut lines and abandoned their efforts. At 1:10 am an explosion equal to or even greater than the “Grandcamp” took place in the holds of the “Highflyer”. Injuries were less as experience had taught the rescue workers to leave the area. The dark sky provided a dramatic shower of flying and burning metal and contents of the hold and objects on the deck.
The toll, after many days of searching, resulted in 405 identified and 63 unidentified dead. One hundred were listed as missing, their bodies probably vaporized in the explosion and subsequent fire over several days. All but one of the twenty-eight volunteer firemen were killed. The high school gym now served as a morgue. Anywhere from 3,500 to 5,000 were injured. 1,159 houses were condemned, their inhabitants now homeless.
The identified dead were released to family and subsequent funerals were held when the family was able. The sixty-three-unidentified dead were held, hoping a name could be attached and another family to have closure.
On June 22, 1947 at 10:00 am, a funeral was held for these victims. Five thousand people gathered to mourn their fellow residents. Sixty-three slate-grey identical caskets were transported in separate hearses from Camp Wallace. Fifty-one funeral homes from twenty-eight cities participated. The floral association provided casket sprays for each casket. Pallbearers were from local groups such as the VFW and American Legion. Local labor groups, volunteer fireman and others.
Two acres of land in the northern part of town became the Memorial Cemetery, a final dignified resting place for these poor souls, unknown to man, known only to God.
Protestant, Catholic and Jewish clergy led the prayers.
Three neat rows of graves, topped with granite markers with numbers. These numbers correspond with records listing anything known about them and their personal effects.
Some of these victims are likely to be 19 members of the volunteer fire department listed as missing, school children who were watching the burning ship at the time of the explosion and thirty-one crew members of the “Grandcamp”.
A marble statue of an angel, sprinkling flower petals, watches over the graves.
“The Texas City disaster taught us, yet again, how resilient ordinary people can be, how they define beyond any political notion of the word, what it means to be a patriot.” –Reporter and author Bill Minutaglio