Latest / Emergencies and Natural Disasters
When the Switch Lied: The Pasadena Plant That Killed 23
When the Switch Lied: The Pasadena Plant That Killed 23
The control room switch read "closed" while the valve was open, and no alarm existed to warn the 1,500 people on site; within ninety seconds a vapor cloud ignited, starting a cascade that killed 23 and injured 314. How did two identical compressed air hoses, reconnected in the wrong order, turn a routine maintenance day into one of the deadliest petrochemical disasters in American history?
In this episode, we describe the events of October 23, 1989 at the Phillips Petroleum Houston Chemical Complex in Pasadena, Texas, detailing the…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.