The Texas City explosion of 1947
(a little history lesson)
A ship in the Texas City harbor, the Grand Camp, bearing a cargo of ammonium nitrate fertilizer destined for war torn Europe, caught fire.
The fire department was on the scene helping to put out the fire, and a crowd of people (many children) had gathered to watch the firefighters.
The cloud of orange smoke rose to about two thousand feet.
The Grand Camp exploded at 9:00 am.
Within seconds the nearby Monsanto Chemical Plant was aflame.
The fires quickly spread to the refineries that made up the Texas City industrial complex.
At 1:10 a.m. the High Flyer also loaded with ammonium nitrate as well as sulfur, exploded in the most violent of all the blasts, taking with her another ship, the Wilson B. Keene. It also destroyed a concrete warehouse and a grain elevator and triggered even more fires. Almost the entire fire department had been lost in the first explosion, along with plant workers, dock workers, school children, and other bystanders. Windows rattled in Baytown and a fine mist of black oil rained in Galveston.