What Have We Really Learned?
By Tom Parquette
Modern society has experienced many often devastating fire disasters througout history. One needn't go back too far to collectively gain hindsight into many of these disasters. In fact the 1870's isn't a bad place to start. The Great Chicago Fire, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Port Huron, or the Great Boston Fire of 1872 come to mind and all took place within months of each other.
Peshtigo, Wisconsin – October 1871
Fast forward into the 20th century and the examples are also numerous. Culminating, at least notoriously, with the Twin Towers and the horrendous loss of life and property.
Some of these were acts of God, some were accidental acts of man and of course, some were intentional acts of cowardly miscreants. But virtually all were marked by tragedy and tremendous loss of life and resources, both simply the innocent and the courageous protectors we appoint to guard against, prevent and control the incendiary results.
April 16th is just like any other day of the year. It's springtime in most places and our thoughts turn to the outdoors and a new seasons opportunities. Those of us who have been around a while probably view it as any other spring day excepting for notable personal milestones which may have marked that day in our personal histories. But as we approach April 16th in the not too distant future, the year 1947 comes vividly to mind.
April 16, 1947 was just another spring day even in 1947. The only notable event was the coining of the phrase 'Cold War' by Bernard Baruch, the multi millionaire financier and close friend of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In 1931 Churchill was run over by a taxicab in New York while on a trip to visit Baruch. Notable historical vignettes but not shocking or historically significant, at least on that date. Certainly the term 'Cold War' would take on expanded and frightful meaning in the following years for many.
But hundreds of miles from Mr. Baruch and New York, a French Liberty ship, The Grandcamp, was loading in the Port of Texas City, Texas. As the loading of the ship progressed with the taking on of large balls of twine, peanuts, drilling equipment, tobacco, cotton and a small consignment of ammunition the crews focus shifted directly to a small plume of smoke rising in Hold 4 which already contained 880 tons of ammonium nitrate with some 2300 tons already loaded in other holds on the ship. The small plume of smoke was rising between the ship's hull and the cargo holds. The crew tried to douse it. A gallon jug of water (!) and the contents of two fire extinguishers didn't do the job though.
The crew laid a line into the hold but the captain halted that and wouldn't allow water to be used fearing damaging the value of the cargo. Instead, he ordered the hatches sealed and covered with tarps, the ventilators shut down and the steam system turned on and diverted into the hold. All this took place between roughly 8:00 am and 8:30 am but didn't quell the fire which by 8:30 had reached a bright orange plume drawing notice from the citizenry as hundred gathered to watch dockside.. The steam had blown off the hatch covers and the fire was progressing rapidly. The stevadore notified the city fire crews and soon, within minutes, twenty six men from the Texas City volunteer department arrived with four apparatus followed by the Republic Oil Refinery Company fire fighting team.
A photo from 8:45 am showed at least one line trained on the deck of the Grandcamp. The deck was so hot by then the water was vaporizing. Twelve minutes later, The Grandcamp exploded and disintegrated in a spectacle heard 150 miles away. Two light planes were knocked from the air. Blast overpressure had incinerated the fire crews and the ships crew. The Grandcamp showered down over an area of many square miles depositing schrapnel in a reported grid of every square foot of those square miles and destroying property well into the Texas City business district and destroying nearby refineries, storage tanks and pipelines creating more infernos.
Buildings swayed in Baytown, fifteen miles to the north. People were thrown to the ground in Galveston. As the fire and devastation continued, the death toll only mounted. At 11:00 pm that night, some 15 hours after the Grandcamp explosion, it was discovered that an adjacent ship in the harbor, the High Flyer, was also burning. By 1:00 am on the 17th, flames were shooting out of its holds and it exploded with a blast some recalled as worse than that of the Grandcamp.
The pictures show some of the damage of this disaster. But this article isn't really about Texas City. At least not directly or intentionally. It is about knowledge, learning from experience and, well, prevention.
Texas City was a loss of 568 lives, 3500 injured and over $100 million in 1947 dollars. The disaster resulted in landmark Supreme Court cases as the government actually tried to screw the responders and the injured. Sound at all familiar?
Have we learned anything? Certainly we must have given the 65 years which have passed since this disaster. Hell, we learned something between 1871 and this 1947 thing, didn't we?
Less than a year following Texas City, in 1948 several chemical and refining companies operating in the Texas gulf region banded together and formed what today is the largest non-profit industrial fire fighting group in the country. The Refinery Terminal Fire Company today is owned by some 11 companies (at last count) and employs over 100 full time trained firefighters operating 365 days a year. They protect over 70 individual facilities from six houses and in-house locations and operate a 5.5 million dollar training facility which is a state of the art facility sought after world wide.
RFTC is funded by assessments to its members. Some of those members contribute equipment and other resources as well. Among these members, names like Citgo, Diamond Shamrock, Valero, El Paso, Calpine, Koch, and Lyondell are notable. The RTFC also is responsible in a unique joint response arrangement for the Port of Corpus Christi with all dispatch and reporting going through RTFC call centers and dispatch.
RFTC has all of the same problems as any other fire company in the country. But they are an outstanding example of, essentially, industry specific, directed responsibility for fire control. It is largely a well run, well staffed and well equipped company and they get the job done both in their direct areas of responsibility and those of assist to municipal companies in their geopraphic area of operation.
This is an outstanding example of corporate responsibility directed to and operated by fire professionals. BUT. Yes, there is always a BUT. But could or would the identical Grandcamp fiasco of 1947 have the same or similar result were it to occur on April 16, 2012? Could the various responders, including perhaps RTFC or other similar companies have really changed the outcome of history? Perhaps reducing the collateral damage? The loss of life? The injury? The loss of property and the devastation?
I'm not so sure there is a positive answer to that question. At least I'm not sure as I examine the continued gutting of our municipal fire companies by inept, often corrupt and uncaring politicians throughout the country. We can and in most cases do have the highest level of fire professionals in the management and execution of our fire service including the best training, prevention and equipment which our experience and modern technology can produce.
But we also have some of the most inept and yes, I'll say it again, corrupt politicians at the ultimate control of these emergency resources. The purpose of a military for instance, is to kill people and destroy things. Our military, for one, is incomparably the best in the world at this. With one exception, and that is the political structure in effect 'controlling' that mission.
Our government has the primary charge of developing infrastructure and protecting the citizenry. Period. Part of that 'protecting the citizenry' is in the hands of that military on one level, and in the hands of our police, fire and first responder organizations countrywide, or on a different level.
In this period of tight economics it would seem the politicians prefer to shirk their responsibility to the citizenry by 'cutting' staffs and operations at critical front line levels when in fact these cuts, if needed at all, should be the last thing on the plate. I believe our emergency personnel at all levels be it police, fire, EMT, whatever, have a responsibility to 'call out' and identify these politicians who are choosing to castrate services while keeping the graft and special interest money going in the dumper. We need to educate the people who depend on these emergency services just what the morons at the throttle of funding and operation are doing to this nation.
Where might we be, how much risk might we all bear were the RTFC and others like it non existant? Could, is it possible, is there a chance of another Texas City type disaster? Or, how about another Chicago Fire, Peshtigo or Boston or one of the many others? I'm neither smart enough nor prepared to answer that question but I do have an opinion.
Have we learned anything? I'll leave that to you to answer. But as our population continues to climb it seems reasonable to assume the potential at least for serious public disaster, too will climb. Will we be as effective as we can reasonably be? Or will the possible horrors of the future be followed by butt covering and excuses, smoke and mirrors as it so often has in the past?
………. Tom Parquette
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Have We Learned From Our Past? – A Historical Commentary
1 commentWhat Have We Really Learned?
By Tom Parquette
Modern society has experienced many often devastating fire disasters througout history. One needn't go back too far to collectively gain hindsight into many of these disasters. In fact the 1870's isn't a bad place to start. The Great Chicago Fire, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Port Huron, or the Great Boston Fire of 1872 come to mind and all took place within months of each other.
Peshtigo, Wisconsin – October 1871
Fast forward into the 20th century and the examples are also numerous. Culminating, at least notoriously, with the Twin Towers and the horrendous loss of life and property.
Some of these were acts of God, some were accidental acts of man and of course, some were intentional acts of cowardly miscreants. But virtually all were marked by tragedy and tremendous loss of life and resources, both simply the innocent and the courageous protectors we appoint to guard against, prevent and control the incendiary results.
April 16th is just like any other day of the year. It's springtime in most places and our thoughts turn to the outdoors and a new seasons opportunities. Those of us who have been around a while probably view it as any other spring day excepting for notable personal milestones which may have marked that day in our personal histories. But as we approach April 16th in the not too distant future, the year 1947 comes vividly to mind.
April 16, 1947 was just another spring day even in 1947. The only notable event was the coining of the phrase 'Cold War' by Bernard Baruch, the multi millionaire financier and close friend of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In 1931 Churchill was run over by a taxicab in New York while on a trip to visit Baruch. Notable historical vignettes but not shocking or historically significant, at least on that date. Certainly the term 'Cold War' would take on expanded and frightful meaning in the following years for many.
But hundreds of miles from Mr. Baruch and New York, a French Liberty ship, The Grandcamp, was loading in the Port of Texas City, Texas. As the loading of the ship progressed with the taking on of large balls of twine, peanuts, drilling equipment, tobacco, cotton and a small consignment of ammunition the crews focus shifted directly to a small plume of smoke rising in Hold 4 which already contained 880 tons of ammonium nitrate with some 2300 tons already loaded in other holds on the ship. The small plume of smoke was rising between the ship's hull and the cargo holds. The crew tried to douse it. A gallon jug of water (!) and the contents of two fire extinguishers didn't do the job though.
The crew laid a line into the hold but the captain halted that and wouldn't allow water to be used fearing damaging the value of the cargo. Instead, he ordered the hatches sealed and covered with tarps, the ventilators shut down and the steam system turned on and diverted into the hold. All this took place between roughly 8:00 am and 8:30 am but didn't quell the fire which by 8:30 had reached a bright orange plume drawing notice from the citizenry as hundred gathered to watch dockside.. The steam had blown off the hatch covers and the fire was progressing rapidly. The stevadore notified the city fire crews and soon, within minutes, twenty six men from the Texas City volunteer department arrived with four apparatus followed by the Republic Oil Refinery Company fire fighting team.
A photo from 8:45 am showed at least one line trained on the deck of the Grandcamp. The deck was so hot by then the water was vaporizing. Twelve minutes later, The Grandcamp exploded and disintegrated in a spectacle heard 150 miles away. Two light planes were knocked from the air. Blast overpressure had incinerated the fire crews and the ships crew. The Grandcamp showered down over an area of many square miles depositing schrapnel in a reported grid of every square foot of those square miles and destroying property well into the Texas City business district and destroying nearby refineries, storage tanks and pipelines creating more infernos.
Buildings swayed in Baytown, fifteen miles to the north. People were thrown to the ground in Galveston. As the fire and devastation continued, the death toll only mounted. At 11:00 pm that night, some 15 hours after the Grandcamp explosion, it was discovered that an adjacent ship in the harbor, the High Flyer, was also burning. By 1:00 am on the 17th, flames were shooting out of its holds and it exploded with a blast some recalled as worse than that of the Grandcamp.
The pictures show some of the damage of this disaster. But this article isn't really about Texas City. At least not directly or intentionally. It is about knowledge, learning from experience and, well, prevention.
Texas City was a loss of 568 lives, 3500 injured and over $100 million in 1947 dollars. The disaster resulted in landmark Supreme Court cases as the government actually tried to screw the responders and the injured. Sound at all familiar?
Have we learned anything? Certainly we must have given the 65 years which have passed since this disaster. Hell, we learned something between 1871 and this 1947 thing, didn't we?
RFTC is funded by assessments to its members. Some of those members contribute equipment and other resources as well. Among these members, names like Citgo, Diamond Shamrock, Valero, El Paso, Calpine, Koch, and Lyondell are notable. The RTFC also is responsible in a unique joint response arrangement for the Port of Corpus Christi with all dispatch and reporting going through RTFC call centers and dispatch.
RFTC has all of the same problems as any other fire company in the country. But they are an outstanding example of, essentially, industry specific, directed responsibility for fire control. It is largely a well run, well staffed and well equipped company and they get the job done both in their direct areas of responsibility and those of assist to municipal companies in their geopraphic area of operation.
This is an outstanding example of corporate responsibility directed to and operated by fire professionals. BUT. Yes, there is always a BUT. But could or would the identical Grandcamp fiasco of 1947 have the same or similar result were it to occur on April 16, 2012? Could the various responders, including perhaps RTFC or other similar companies have really changed the outcome of history? Perhaps reducing the collateral damage? The loss of life? The injury? The loss of property and the devastation?
I'm not so sure there is a positive answer to that question. At least I'm not sure as I examine the continued gutting of our municipal fire companies by inept, often corrupt and uncaring politicians throughout the country. We can and in most cases do have the highest level of fire professionals in the management and execution of our fire service including the best training, prevention and equipment which our experience and modern technology can produce.
But we also have some of the most inept and yes, I'll say it again, corrupt politicians at the ultimate control of these emergency resources. The purpose of a military for instance, is to kill people and destroy things. Our military, for one, is incomparably the best in the world at this. With one exception, and that is the political structure in effect 'controlling' that mission.
Our government has the primary charge of developing infrastructure and protecting the citizenry. Period. Part of that 'protecting the citizenry' is in the hands of that military on one level, and in the hands of our police, fire and first responder organizations countrywide, or on a different level.
In this period of tight economics it would seem the politicians prefer to shirk their responsibility to the citizenry by 'cutting' staffs and operations at critical front line levels when in fact these cuts, if needed at all, should be the last thing on the plate. I believe our emergency personnel at all levels be it police, fire, EMT, whatever, have a responsibility to 'call out' and identify these politicians who are choosing to castrate services while keeping the graft and special interest money going in the dumper. We need to educate the people who depend on these emergency services just what the morons at the throttle of funding and operation are doing to this nation.
Where might we be, how much risk might we all bear were the RTFC and others like it non existant? Could, is it possible, is there a chance of another Texas City type disaster? Or, how about another Chicago Fire, Peshtigo or Boston or one of the many others? I'm neither smart enough nor prepared to answer that question but I do have an opinion.
Have we learned anything? I'll leave that to you to answer. But as our population continues to climb it seems reasonable to assume the potential at least for serious public disaster, too will climb. Will we be as effective as we can reasonably be? Or will the possible horrors of the future be followed by butt covering and excuses, smoke and mirrors as it so often has in the past?
………. Tom Parquette
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