Latest / Emergencies and Natural Disasters
When a 900,000-Gallon Tank Became a Flying Tomb: Channelview 1990
When a 900,000-Gallon Tank Became a Flying Tomb: Channelview 1990
A single instrument gave false "safe" readings for twenty days while a 900,000-gallon tank full of volatile industrial waste became explosive, launching a 48,000-pound lid into a parking lot 200 yards away and killing 17 people. What chain of mechanical failures, decisions, and ignored warnings turned a routine restart into one of the worst industrial blasts along the Houston Ship Channel?
In this episode, we tell the story of the ARCO Chemical plant on the night of July 5, 1990, the people who worked there, and the specific…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.