The Texas City disaster was an industrial accident that occurred on April 16, 1947, in the port of Texas City, Texas, United States, located in Galveston Bay. It was the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history and one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions.

The explosion was triggered by a mid-morning fire on board the French-registered vessel Grandcamp (docked at port), which detonated her cargo of about of ammonium nitrate. This started a chain reaction of fires and explosions aboard other ships and in nearby oil-storage facilities, ultimately killing at least 581 people, including all but one member of Texas City's volunteer fire department.

The disaster drew the first class action lawsuit against the United States government, on behalf of 8,485 plaintiffs, under the 1946 Federal Tort Claims Act.

Background

Geography

The Port of Texas City is located in a protected harbor inland from Galveston, with relatively straight access to the Gulf of Mexico. The dedicated Texas City Terminal Railway provided final mile service directly to the port. In a Cold War gesture, the ship was assigned by the U.S. to the French Line to assist in the rebuilding of France, along with other efforts in Europe. Accordingly, she was captained by a French crew led by Captain Charles de Guillebon. Along with the ammonium nitrate—a very common cargo on the high seas—she was carrying small-arms ammunition, machinery, and bales of sisal twine on the deck. Around 8:30 a.m. the stevedores who were fighting the fire were ordered off the ship, likely because the heat had become too intense and there were concerns that the small arms ammunition could cook off. Around 9:00, the fire abated slightly, but the steam suppression system was still actively heating Hold 4. Most of the crew had disembarked the ship, and Captain Guillebon was taking a headcount on the pier. while away, half of the windows in Galveston were shattered. The explosion blew almost of the ship's steel into the air, some at supersonic speed.

The Monsanto Chemical Company plant adjacent to the slip where Grandcamp was docked suffered the brunt of the first explosion. Of its 574 employees and contractors, 234 were killed, and 200 more were injured. Every man of the Monsanto fire fighting team, which was laying hose reels opposite Grandcamp, was killed.

Neither the Port of Texas City, the Texas City Terminal Railway, the City itself, nor any of the oil refineries, had a disaster preparedness planwhich even at the time was regarded as inadequate. In the end, the Texas City Relief Fund raised more than $1 million ($ in today's terms). Payouts for fire insurance claims reached nearly $4 million ($ in today's terms).

Many of the legal cases seeking compensation were combined into Elizabeth Dalehite, et al. v. United States, under the recently enacted Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). On April 13, 1950, the district court found the United States government responsible for a litany of negligent acts of omission and commission by 168 named agencies and their representatives, in the manufacture, packaging, and labeling of ammonium nitrate. This was further compounded by errors in transport, storage, loading, fire prevention, and fire suppression, all of which led to the explosions and the subsequent carnage.

On June 10, 1952, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned this decision, finding that the United States maintained the right to exercise its own "discretion" in vital national matters. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that decision (346 U.S. 15, June 8, 1953), in a 4-to-3 opinion, noting that the district court had no jurisdiction under the federal statute to find the government liable for "negligent planning decisions" which were properly delegated to various departments and agencies. In short, the FTCA clearly exempts "failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty", and the court found that all of the alleged acts in this case were discretionary in nature.

In its dissent, the three justices argued that, under the FTCA, "Congress has defined the tort liability of the government as analogous to that of a private person", i.e., when carrying out duties unrelated to governing. In this case, "a policy adopted in the exercise of an immune discretion was carried out carelessly by those in charge of detail", and that a private person would certainly be held liable for such acts. A private person is held to a higher standard of care when carrying out "inherently dangerous" acts such as transportation and storage of explosives.

According to Melvin Belli in his book Ready for the Plaintiff! (1965), Congress acted to provide some compensation after the courts refused to do so. Dalehite was eventually "appealed" to Congress, where relief was granted by means of legislation (Public Law 378, 69 Stat. 707 (1955)). When the last claim had been processed in 1957, 1,394 awards totaling nearly $17 million had been made.

See also

  • Halifax explosion (1917)
  • List of ammonium nitrate disasters
  • Oppau explosion (1921)
  • West Fertilizer Company explosion in West, Texas (2013)
  • Tianjin explosions (2015)
  • Beirut explosion (2020)
  • Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions

References

Further reading

From the news

Final report

  • An extract can be found here (retrieved on 2024-01-21; archived on 2019-09-15).
  • Handbook of Texas entry

Collections and galleries

  • 1947 Texas City Disaster web exhibit – From the Moore Memorial Public Library in Texas City
  • Pictures – From the Portal to Texas History of the University of North Texas Libraries
  • Pictures taken by an unknown individual between 16 and 21 April 1947 – From University of Houston's digital collections
  • "The Explosion: 50 Years Later, Texas City Still Remembers" – Collection of articles by the Houston Chronicle
  • "The Texas City Disaster – April 16, 1947"

Documentaries

  • The Texas City Disaster – April 16, 1947 (1947) by the Texas Department of Public Safety – On the Texas Archive of the Moving Image
  • Encounter with Disaster (1979) by Charles E. Sellier Jr., produced by Sunn Classic Pictures – On the Internet Archive