Paper Topic:

1947 Texas City Disaster

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The 1947 Texas City Disaster

Introduction

The Texas disaster occurred on 16th April 1947 in the morning . It involved the ship known as Grandcamp belonging to the French but later spread to other areas . Grandcamp was used in the transportation of consignments of fertilizers specifically ammonium nitrate . These were in the 4th compartment or held together with other cargo such as drilling machines , cotton , peanuts , sisal and even ammunitions . On this particular moment , there were no safety measures which had been put

in place for any emergencies . The longshoremen neglected any precautionary measures that were necessary in this case . In the process of hoisting the cargos , smoke was noticed by one of the workers . Although there were fire extinguishers in the ship , none seemed to work . The crew members even tried to use water to try and control the situation but to no avail . In the process , the situation moved from bad to worse as the fire spread rapidly . Smoke rapidly filed the compartment and the crew members were forced to get out . It was unfortunate that the water horse was not turned on . Later on , the captain explained that the cargo would be destroyed if water was used to extinguish the fire (Minutaglio ,

77

The foreman for the gang during this time was Leonard Boswell whereas Peter Suderman was the superintendent . Efforts were made to remove the ammunitions which were carried in the 5th hold of the ship . This was done as a...

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