This is a much better book than City on Fire, which I reviewed earlier. Ironically, it gets poorer reviews on Amazon because it’s “too factual”. I wish I had read the books in the opposite order; the Hugh Stephens book does a better job of describing the facts without being sidetracked by the “human interest” stories.

Author Hugh Stephens teaches a disaster response class, and that’s his focus. While he doesn’t whitewash the corporate interests at Texas City, he’s much less biased than Minutaglio. As examples:

* Minutaglio only mentions the Texas City Fire Department at the docks when the Grandcamp blew up; Stephens points out that industrial firefighting crews from Republic Oil and Monsanto were also there and were lost in the explosion.

* Minutaglio blames the “corporations” for building petrochemical plants so close to homes, businesses, and schools; Stephens notes that they were zoned there.

* Minutaglio is angry with Monsanto for rebuilding in the same location; Stephens notes that the announcement that Monsanto would rebuild was one of the things that buoyed the populace of Texas City. Monsanto also paid all the surviving employees while the new plant was under construction, gave $1000 to all the widows, and set up career change courses for them as well.

* Minutaglio claims that firefighters (from Houston and Galveston; the Texas City fire department was gone) did not use water from the turning basin because they were afraid there would be “toxic chemicals” in it; Stephens notes that pumpers were unable to get to the turning basin for days because the only access road was blocked by debris, including the Longhorn, a 100-foot long hydrochloric acid barge.

Stephens is also much better in presenting the material. There’s an area map, a map of the docks with the devastated area outlined, and even a loading diagram for the Grandcamp. This last allows for an interesting and plausible speculation on the cause of the explosion; Stephens notes that the Liberty Ships had a vertical fuel bunker and that the ammonium nitrate was in a hold adjacent to this. As the ammonium nitrate fire became more intense, the bulkhead separating the fuel bunker from the hold weakened and eventually failed, allowing fuel oil to spill into molten ammonium nitrate.


Stephens is much harder on the Texas City municipal authorities, noting that there was no disaster plan (although this seems like impeccable hindsight, it’s not an anachronism; contemporary observers noted that most cities in similar situations had some sort of disaster plan, or at least mutual aid agreements with surrounding governments). Stephen is also unequivocal in blaming the United States Government for the disaster, noting that the ammonium nitrate was loaded at government ammunition plants without required labeling and that the Coast Guard ignored its obligation to supervise the loading of the Grandcamp. Minutaglio also blames the US government, but not as harshly (possibly because that would dilute his attack on “the corporations” as culpable.

Both authors, however, have a problem with ammonium nitrate hazmat regulations. Stephens keeps harping that the ammonium nitrate bags should have carried the “yellow explosive label”; however, the “explosive” label is orange; it’s the “oxidizer” label that’s yellow. This was noted in the contemporary Coast Guard report on the explosion. Ammonium nitrate is still correctly labeled as an “oxidizer”, not as “explosive”. From a hazmat perspective, this is, now and in 1947, the correct label. If the Texas City fire chief and the cargo master of the Grandcamp had realized that they were dealing with an oxidizer, they would have known that attempts to smother the fire were going to be worse than useless. (It’s not clear from either book if the Texas City fire department had authority to order the Grandcamp to flood a hold, but at least they might have realized that their presence was useless and evacuated).

Finally, Stephens is very hard on the media. Radio broadcasters repeatedly announced the latest inflammatory rumor, and made appeals for aid without coordinating with any of the responding agencies, resulting in even more well-intentioned people showing up in an already chaotic area. Stephens also reports that a “citizen” of Texas City mounted loudspeakers on his car and drove around making various counterproductive announcements and warnings, resulting in several unnecessary evacuations. I wonder who he was? Texas City was not that large a town and there can’t have been that many people with loudspeakers; I suspect his identity was known but locals covered for him.

Despite the minor problem with ammonium nitrate hazmat chemistry, this is still a very worthwhile book for anybody interested in disaster response. ( )

Excellent coverage of this tragic event. A few b&w photos. ( )