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Rip76

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  1. Definitely upside down world. There's no video out yet? (I'm not looking back through 6 pages)
  2. That was pretty quick on pulling that video.
  3. Strange
  4. This is from Texas City's home page this morning - "On this day 78 years ago, at 9:12 a.m., the cargo ship SS Grandcamp detonated in Texas City after its load of ammonium nitrate caught on fire. It exploded with a force more powerful than an atomic bomb. It caused a 15-foot tidal wave that crashed onto the dock and flooded the surrounding area. Windows were shattered as far away as in Houston, and people in Louisiana felt the shock, more than 250 miles away. Nearly 600 people were killed, including all but one member of Texas City's volunteer fire department, and thousands were injured. Close to 1,000 buildings were leveled, and an estimated 500 homes were destroyed. Later, another ship also carrying ammonium nitrate, the High Flyer, exploded with even more force, resulting in more deaths, injuries and destruction. It was the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history. Throughout the day, we will be honoring those who were lost in the 1947 Disaster, sharing stories of survivors and highlighting the amazing resiliency of our community." Growing up hearing first-hand accounts of that day from my mom and dad, I was always surprised that many people had never even heard much about The Texas City Disaster. Honestly, growing up in Texas City I don't really even remember being taught that much in school about it either. My dad's father was the Fire Chief for Texas City during this period, and the fire department were all volunteer at this time. (I will post my mom and dad's stories below.) In addition to the death and destruction on that day, the long term effects of that day were not so nice either; Alcohol issues, mental problems and lingering health problems for some. Below, is from my parents point of view regarding that day, and that is the last picture of my grandfather with the black hat, on the dock. BAUMGARTNER, HAROLD J. "BUMPY" We lived at 519 7th Street North behind City Hall. The Kirbys lived on the south side of us and the Maddux family on the north. We were having breakfast, and my father was leaving for work at the Texas City Terminal. I noticed the smoke, told Mother about it and went outside for a better view. It was about 8:20, and nofire alarm had sounded. Two friends, James Menge and Bucky Whitly, rode up on thier bikes and asked me to ride with them for a closer look. I yelled to Mom that I'd be back. Near Texas from 6th Street we saw the fire was on the docks. We stopped near 3rd Street where the dock road crosses the dirt levee. Policeman Jim Bell rode up to direct traffic and prevent non-essential people from going to the docks. A huge crowd had already gathered. The Grandcamp's whistle sounded several short blasts, and the crewplaced large timbers over the hatch emitting orange smoke, Hold #4, to introduce live steaminto the hold to smother the fire. My father had told us about a fire in the hold of a ship moored at this pier two days before which took about 20 minutes to put out. The Coast Guard inquest into the cause of the disaster verified that fire had been aboard the Grandcamp in Hold #2. James and Bucky joined some friends on the east side of 3rd. (Bucky later died instantly from a shrapnel wound to the head.) I moved down the levee on the south bank as my brother rode up on his motor scooter. He had clutch problems and didn't stay long. A young couple in a '36 Ford Coupe parked across the street from me as a continual stream of spectators joined the scene. No. 4 hatch cover rattled and jumped up and down after the pressurized steam was introduced, causing decomposition gases to evolve. The siren at the terminal sounded at 8:30 a. m. Many people left the immediate dock area, including the ship's crew. The Texas City Fire Department had not been summoned to the fire. Seven minutes later city sirens sounded, and fire trucks soon arrived. The first, driven by Clarence Wood, approached the ship about 8:45, followed shortly by the other three which initiated much activity- firemen playing out hoses, dropping suction hoses into the slip, spraying streams of water on the burning ship, and men arriving in private cars until a full compliment of twenty-seven men were there. Hold #4 started rattling and jumping and blew a seal. Some of the timbers, now afire, flew into the air and fell back into the open hatch. When the smoke erupted, it was dirty brown, indicating an advanced state of decomposition of the ammonium nitrate or that possibly Bunker C fuel was leaking into the hold and burning with the nitrates. Sharp, cracking sounds came from the hold as firemen on deck played water streams into the hatch. I could see my father, Fire Chief Henry J. Baumgartner, on the ship with about a dozen men. The water looked like it was turning into steam. No one knew it, but it was already to late to conquer this fire. Right after Dad arrived, he told a fellow terminal employee: "This is a dangerous fire. We need all the help we can get!" Two Piper Cub airplanes circled the docks. I looked up as one banked above me to turn towards the dock. Louder cracking sounds came from the ship. I looked down. The ship disintegrated before my eyes. Objects of all sizes shot into the air from the fireball before the sky turned hazy and dark. The ground shook violently. The shock wave - overpressure- sped across the open field and slapped the trees to the ground. There was no time to react. The seismic wave reached me in about 0.2 seconds, the shock wave in 1.7 to 1.8 seconds. The ground shock's noise and the intensity of the overpressure were incredible. It lifted me over the levee, and blew me across 4th Avenue and rolled me into a ditch about 190 feet away. I waited to see if more explosions would follow as people ran screaming from the area, caught in no-man's land with no place to hide. To the north and south lay a block of open land, to the east, an inferno. There was no time to reach the homes to the west. Jim Bell picked up his Harley-Davidson, about 850 pounds, tried to crank it, but it wouldn't start. Knowing objects would be falling from the sky, I looked for substantial shelter and dove through a hole in the wall of a damage garage. An elderly black man in suit and tie was on his knees praying. Showers of shrapnel and objects rained down over the entire area, hit the garage and crashed into the surrounding homes, creating incredible sounds. Those noises, which often shook the ground, were joined by human wails of pain and screams for help. We were pelted by splinters of wood from the garage's structure and roof as it was being destroyed around us. The roar and heat of the fires was tremendous. After what seemed an eternity, the barrage stopped. Our shelter beaten down around us, my companion and I bolted out the back and were entangled in high-tension cables coiled like loose springs on the ground. Thank God, power had been knocked out. I ran north down an alley for a block when a black lady, too frightened to go back into her house, screamed for me to save her baby. I followed the baby's cries through the rubble and found the crib crumpled in a corner. A large piece of steel had come through the ceiling and sheared the crib in half before going through the floor. The head and footboard collasped inward, squeezing the baby's head between them and the mattress. I finally got the baby out and gave it to the hysterical mother. Along Texas Avenue, I saw more injured people and businesses with severe damage on blood-splattered sidewalks. Doors, windows and storefronts were demolished. Merchandise spilled outside. At the alley of the Rainbow Cafe, something told me to stop. A car going 50 to 60 mph shot across 6th Street airborne, disappearing down the opposite alley. I hoped damage would lesson as I neared home, but in front of the telephone company on 5th Avenue, there was a twisted piece of metal wieghing 20 to 30 pounds buried in the street- familiar sites by now, but I hadn't expected to see them over a mile away. Family, relatives and friends were in our front yard and were relieved when they saw me. Mother was bleeding from her forehead, temple and left finger, but her thoughts were on the fate of her husband and the welfare of her family. All of our family was accounted for except my father. Aunt Wininna Baumgartner was in a Galveston hospital in critical but stable condition. She has been by a Monsanto window. Rescuers found her on the first floor under rubble of the second floor. There was no word on any of the twenty-seven firemen. But I knew my Dad was gone when the ship exploded because I had seen him on deck a moment before. I knew he couldn't have survived. Our home was in shambles, and the Kirby's and my family stayed at a Dickinson volunteer firemen's home in Dickinson. A little after 1 a.m., my brother and I were going inside to bed when the southeast sky lit up like day- a white fireball rose into the night sky, and white-hot meta fragments and metal debris shot into the sky. The ground shook for several seconds. Then the report was heard- a tremendous roar. The next morning, my mother Christine, Uncle Emmett "Hasp" Hale, son-in-law Kenneth, and I went to McGar's and were met by Mayor Trahan who stopped to console Mother. There was still no word of any of the firemen. We viewed the bodies there, at the gym. The grim reality begin to sink into all the family as we sadly walked home together. My oldest brother, Charles, drove home on his motorcycle from Norfolk, West Virginia, where he was stationed in the U.S. Navy. He tried to get information about Dad, but none would ever be forthcoming. Mom chased many rumors; someone had seen my father leaving the dock area in a daze; another said he'd seen him in the wreckage of his office with a pipe through his chest, dead; and a person in a Houston hospital had part of an I.D. card with a last name ending in "-t-n-e-r." We spent Friday cleaning the house, throwing away items that couldn't be salvaged. Saturday, my brother took me to pick up my bicycle. It seemed impossible that I had escaped without so much as a scratch. If I had stayed home doing my homework, I would have been cut to ribbons. My desk was riddled with glass shards embedded in the top and sides. On Sunday we attended a memorial service at 5:00 p.m. at the football stadium with a backdrop of black smoke and burning storage tanks. BAUMGARTNER, FERN WHITTINGTON It was my eighth birthday. My mom, Mae Kettrick, was baking a cake, and I was hoping for a surprise party. I'd never had a real one with kids and presents. The teacher left for a few minutes, and I got up in front of the class and invited everyone to my birthday party, knowing I wasn't having one. All I could think of was the presents I'd get if the whole class came. Then, there was a tremendous explosion and an awesome flash of light, like the sun exploded. I thought god's wrath was falling upon me for lying about the party. The force of it blew me into the blackboard. Day turned to night, and I knew he was on his way! Terrified kids ran over me. My cousin, Mary Etta Jannero, saw me trying to get out of the way and carried me down the hall on her back. When we got outside, I screamed non-stop. I was going to hell that very day. The entire school yard was filled with bloody children and parents, all in wild eyed panic. Add to thier screams the sounds of fire trucks, car horns, ambulances and the constant mighty roar of all the fires, exploding storage tanks and bursting gas lines, and you have one horrendous nightmare. Even now, I get a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes when I recall that desperate scene. Brother Raymond, eleven, and best pal, Preston Glover, handled fear differently than I, still screaming at the top of my lungs. They drew a circle in the dirt and quietly played marbles. Preston's mom came to get him, but when she saw me in hysterics, decided to stay until my parents arrived. Mother had baked my birthday cake, put a pot of pinto beans on to cook and was about to take a bath. Stepfather, Sonny Kettrick, working graveyards, got out of bed for a drink of water. The explosion blew the water out of the bathtub, and Mom dashed out of the apartment in her slip, barefooted. Sonny caught her at the foot of the stairs with her robe in his hand. Mrs. Glover, still holding my hand while I screamed my head off, saw a tiny lady in a ruby-red chenille robe racing down 3rd Street followed by a big man in a tee-shirt, pants and slippers that flopped with each step. I'm sure she was overjoyed as I to see them because I stopped screaming. Our apartment was wrecked-- staircase partially blown down, kitchen cieling caved in with walls decorated in birthday cake and beans. We stayed in Somerville at my grandmother's. My friend, Gloria Dahl's, ten year old brother Robert drowned when the tidal wave carried him out into the Bay. No one in our family was killed or injured. My husband Harold, whom I married years later, lost his father, so in a sense, I did lose a family member. Our three children and little grandaughter never got to know his father, the fire chief, who with his equally brave men, lost his life that day on the Grandcamp. Despite everything, I have never considered living anywhere but here. These come from a website by a former Texas City Firefighter, which is probably the most informative page I've ever seen regarding the TC explosion. https://www.local1259iaff.org/disaster.html
  5. Signs are pointing to Rockets vs GSW. Homefield. F GSW!
  6. Well F. I'm just hearing about this. Damn man.
  7. Yes, not the best month in regard to incidents. 78 years ago.
  8. Username and all that. Glad you guys are okay. Were they storing Ammonium Nitrate in the garage? We were in that area today on the way back to Houston, and saw this thread.
  9. “Sunday’s with Rory”
  10. Damn. Just walked out of the hotel room, Rory is balling.
  11. One of my friends gave me a tour of Mission Control before they restored it.
  12. NASA botched that by not having a nice place to display it. That being said, bring the f’ing thing to Houston where it belongs. My idea was to take the walls off of the Astrodome, plexiglass that thing (or something like that), put the shuttle in there and light it up at night so you can see it from 610.
  13. We just can’t have nice things.
  14. Bout to lose this here.
  15. Cam!! 1 more, Cmon
  16. On my old trips, I loved Water Street and Executive Surf Club.
  17. Or Merrill Haggard (In Dan Rather’s voice)
  18. So close, back to -420 now
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