Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. I remember that one and the one at the factory on 290 (near Huffmeister). I may be mixing them up.
Factory near 290 and Huffmeister???? You must mean the explosion at the Wyman Gordon/Cooper/Cameron facility over off 290 and Telge, across from Cy-Fair high school.
You are right. 1992 actually near Brenham. I remember it happening right before I left for school. Here is the Chronicle story: NDUSTRY -- A gas explosion south of Brenham early today killed a 6-year-old (SEE CORRECTION) boy, injured at least 16 people, flattened houses, leveled trees and scorched buildings. The explosion occurred about 7:15 a.m. at an underground salt dome storage facility in southwestern Washington County, about 7 miles south of Brenham near Industry. Several homes within a mile of the explosion were flattened, said Kathy Merit, a dispatcher for the Washington County sheriff's office. A liquefied petroleum gas pipeline that feeds into the salt dome is owned by Seminole Pipeline Co., which is majority-owned by MAPCO Transportation Inc. of Tulsa. John L. Simms, president of Trinity Medical Center in Brenham, said the hospital treated 14 people early today, sending at least four to Hermann Hospital in Houston, where they were reported to be in critical condition. Two were admitted to Trinity, and the others treated and released. Most of the injured suffered burns, but there were some fractures and minor injuries, he said. Initial reports indicated a young boy was killed in a mobile home near the site. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No other fatalities were reported. LifeFlight helicopters arrived between 9:20 a.m. and 10 a.m. at Hermann Hospital with four critically burned victims, whom hospital spokeswoman Patty Riddlebarger identified as Travis Medve, 3 ; his mother, Dolores Medve, 27; her mother, Gloria Diver, 46; and Jane Meinen, about 30, who Riddlebarger said is the mother of the child who died. Dr. Donald Parks, director of the Hermann Burn Center, said he is optimistic about their recovery but that they will need several weeks of critical care. Parks said the child was awake and able to communicate. "He in fact asked me if I would hold him," Parks said. Most of the injured were believed to live in houses near the blast site. "Most of the people to be transported were in houses, and those houses are flat," said Bonnie Meneely, a Houston paramedic. Hermann helicopters will remain at the scene as rescuers sift through rubble in search of more victims, the spokeswoman said. A two-patient Life Flight helicopter from Galveston's University of Texas Medical Branch also was dispatched to the scene to pick up victims. A hospital spokesman said burn doctors were standing by to treat the injured. UTMB's John Sealy Hospital operates an adult burn unit. The UTMB helicopter was still at the scene at 9:17 a.m., and the spokesman said John Sealy Hospital officials did not yet know how many victims would be arriving at the Galveston trauma center. Residents in the rural farming area reported flames shooting about 100 feet in the air. Authorities believe the explosion may have involved about four miles of a liquid petroleum pipeline near the Wesley Oilfield salt dome . Reports also indicated the blast may have involved a natural gas storage area at the site. Underground salt domes, a mushroom-shaped geological formation of salt not far below the earth's surface, are common geological features. Pipelines are often streamed through them because they can lessen the force of any explosion or fire. The explosion could be felt as far away as Lake Conroe, Crosby, Baytown, Galveston and Winnie, in far eastern Chambers County. Observers likened the long shock wave of trembling, rumbling vibrations to an earthquake. Johnnie Stewart, Austin County Courthouse switchboard operator who lives about 10 miles from the blast site, said the explosion shook her storm door. "It was terrible, very devastating," said Stewart. "It shook my storm door back and forth, back and forth. I had some little wrens in a nest, and it slammed them out of their nest." Police scanners crackled throughout the county as emergency personnel in rural counties west of Houston arranged to help out at the scene. Lee McMurtry, who was at work in the 19th floor of NationsBank at 700 Louisiana in Houston, felt the skyscraper tremble. "I stood up and could feel the building moving. (It) felt like being on a boat," McMurtry said. Former Austin County Sheriff Truman Maddox said he felt the blast 28 miles away in Sealy. He said his family's built-in oven moved about one-half inch out of the wall and a neighbor's cupboard door swung open. "It was quite a shake-up," Maddox said. "I was here at the house and I felt it, but I honestly felt it was something in the railroad yard." The explosion also shook a neighborhood in the Highlands area, southeast of Houston. "It was like a real loud boom, boom, boom and every house rattled," said Marguerite Miller. "The house just bulged and shook and every window was rattling. The dogs just went crazy. Everybody ran outside" The pipeline connected to the salt dome carries 150,000 barrels of petroleum products a day from from Hobbs, N.M., to Mont Belvieu, said Craig Whitley, a consultant with Bonner & Moore. The shock wave rocked the Brenham State School, about 8 miles from the blast site, but no damage was reported at the school and none of the estimated 500 residents was injured, said Sheila Allee, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental r****dation. "They said at first they thought it was an earthquake," she said. The school houses mentally r****ded people of all ages, Allee said.
Yeah, back in 1996 (seemed more far back though). I remember you could see the hole in the roof from 290. Chron story: Blast at plant kills 8 workers/Pressure in tanks blamed By S.K. BARDWELL, LISA TEACHEY Staff An explosion at a northwest Harris County metal forging plant killed eight workers and injured two others, authorities said Monday. The blast blew a gaping hole in the metal roof of a building at the plant, scattering debris and body parts 100 yards away, rescue workers said. Officials with Wyman -Gordon Metal Forging Inc. said the victims were working on high-pressure nitrogen tanks. They believed the tanks had been depressurized before they began removing bolts that held a cap in place, the officials said. Dianna Petterson, a spokeswoman for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said the nitrogen in the tanks was pressurized at 5,000 pounds per square inch. Unleashing such pressure, she said, was ""like sticking a pin in a balloon. It releases all that air, and the pieces go everywhere." ""There was no fire, no chemical reaction," Petterson said. ""This was purely a release of stored energy." Plant employees and relatives of the victims began to gather at the site about 6 a.m. Monday to gaze in horror at the devastation. The explosion occurred at 11:45 p.m. Sunday. ""We've lost a lot of young lives out there," said instrument maintenance worker James Myatt. ""It's very tragic, especially since many of their fathers work out there." A former employee whose father and grandfather both had worked at the plant came to the site Monday afternoon. Weeping, she attached a bouquet of poinsettias to the fence with a card that read, ""May God be with you." The dead were identified as Donald L. Terry, 60; Jim E. Brooks Jr., 55; Amos C. Lightfoot, 56; Enrique Uribe, 57; Brian Meche, 27; Jody Norred, 24; Steven Nagy, 29; and Michael Anthony Gunn, 26. Nagy and Gunn were the sons of longtime Wyman -Gordon employees. Gregory Dargin, 31, and Santiago ""Jimmy" Galindo, 57, were in stable condition in Hermann Hospital. Doug Whelan, president of Wyman -Gordon 's Forgery Division, said each of the dead employees' families had been notified of the disaster Monday. At the time of the blast, 61 employees were working at the plant. Whelan said all the others had been accounted for. The 10-man maintenance crew was working in an area of the plant where tanks of pressurized nitrogen were used to help power a massive press that squeezes out metal for heavy-wall, seamless pipe used in power plants, Whelan said. Before the maintenance work began, Whelan said, the press was shut down and, the workers thought, the tanks depressurized. He said the workers were on catwalks over the pressure tanks when they exploded. ""We are at a complete loss as to how there could have been pressure left in them," Whelan said. The company's engineers have not been able to enter the blast site to inspect the tanks, he said. The explosion destroyed the 80-foot-high catwalk where the victims had been working. Cy-Fair Volunteer Fire Department rescue workers used a ladder truck and high-rise rescue procedures to search for victims. Whelan praised the rescue workers for the speed with which they were able to locate the two survivors, both of whom were taken to Hermann Hospital by Life Flight helicopter. Erik Petocz, assistant chief of the Cy-Fair Fire Department, said rescue workers had trouble with emotional as well as physical aspects of searching the debris early Monday. ""It reminds me of Hollywood," Petocz said, likening the scene to that of an air crash or a disaster movie. Deputies and trained dogs worked in a field adjacent to the blast site through the day Monday, searching for body parts and debris. Bill Anders, chief investigator for the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office, said the investigation into the precise cause of the explosion was moving slowly because the area inside the gutted structure was unsafe and covered in thick clouds of graphite. One OSHA inspector was at the blast site Monday. Petterson, the agency spokeswoman, said two more inspectors would arrive today. Knowing what caused the uncontrolled release of the nitrogen, the inspectors will focus on what caused the workers to think the vessel had been depressurized, Petterson said. Whelan said that when those investigations are complete, the company will conduct its own inquiry and will bring in independent investigators. Whelan said the maintenance work under way when the explosion occurred had been scheduled because of previous evidence of a leak there. He said it is common for routine maintenance to be done around the holidays, when production lines are shut down. Maintenance would have been scheduled for the area as a preventive measure, even if no leak had been indicated, he said. Wyman -Gordon Chief Executive Officer Dave Gruber was on his way Monday to the Houston plant from the company's headquarters in North Grafton, Mass., Whelan said. A statement issued by Gruber read, in part, ""Our company is grieving today at the loss of eight of our employees. Like a family, we have come together for the families who, instead of celebrating Christmas, will be grieving a tragic loss." The company sent representatives to the homes of each of the employees, designated an area at the plant for those who wanted to wait there for news, and arranged for counselors to talk to employees, Whelan said. The effort was lost on Karin Norred, who said her son, Jody, was among the dead. Norred said a man knocked on her door early Monday and told her there had been ""a little problem" at the plant, and her son was dead. ""I don't think my son was `a little problem,' " Norred said. When the distraught mother arrived at the plant, she ran by a barricade at the front gate and said a Harris County Sheriff's Department deputy tackled her to stop her. ""Nobody would tell me what happened," Norred said. ""Nobody would tell me where my son's body was going to be taken. ""He has a 7-year-old daughter," Norred said. ""And I asked the president of the company if he wanted to tell her that her daddy is killed for Christmas; that's her Christmas present." Whelan said he was unaware any of the victims' families had voiced displeasure over their treatment. G.H. Bell, who said he was a longtime employee, noted that some of those killed were the children of older employees like himself. ""I'm just fortunate that my son wasn't there," Bell said. Raymond Sebesta, who has worked at Wyman -Gordon for 30 years, said he knew many members of the maintenance crew, some for more than 25 years. Gripping the plant's fence and shaking it angrily, Sebesta said, ""They got about the best safety deal here. They are real particular about their safety. ""What can I say?" Sebesta asked, crying. ""I just feel sorry for their families." The Wyman -Gordon plant in Houston was built in the late 1960s as part of Cameron Iron Works. The facility sits on 500 acres and employs 875 people. Among the primary products produced at the plant are jet engine discs for commercial and military aircraft and heavy-wall, seamless pipe. Pipe is manufactured in the area where the explosion occurred. Wyman -Gordon officials said the plant's safety record has been exemplary. The only recorded fatal accident on the site occurred during its construction, they said. -- Explosion rocks forge: What went wrong? A hydraulic press deforms, or "forges," heated metal into a shape. Wyman -Gordon 's Harris County plant forges large pipes through a process called "extrusion."" In this process, imagine opening the bottom of a toothpaste tube and shoving in your thumb to force the paste up through the top of the tube. The enormous pressure to deform metal comes from a high-pressure pump. At some forges, the pump directly drives the "ram" that physically presses against the hot metal. But at others, the loop also includes an "accumulator"-a group of cylinders containing a fluid and a pressurized gas. Through a valve process, pressurized fluid stored in the accumulator (usually water with oil-based additives) is forced by the gas (in this case, nitrogen) into the pump-to-ram loop. While an accumulator doesn't make a pump more powerful, it greatly speeds the ram's ability to forge the metal by forcing fluid into the pistons behind the ram. According to Wyman -Gordon officials, workers in Sunday's accident thought the accumulator was depressurized when they unbolted the top of a cylinder and triggered the pressure-released explosion .
codell.. I remember that slightly I had forgotten about that. I guess it had to have been either when I was in 6th or 7th grade at Arnold, although maybe it was in the summer. One of my friends dad works at that plant actually.
I don't really remember the Vibration, but on the bus to school, I remember people talking about it being an earthquake from Mexico, because that is what their parents told them. I was probably in second grade or something.
Heh. I went to Arnold too. Nice to know a fellow "Buccaneer". Was Mr. Shellenhammer principal when you were there??
codell.. he was assistant principal.. mrs hamilton was principal.. i just did some checking and apparently he, mrs hamilton, and my counselor from arnold all moved to Goodson Middle School... then again it also appears my principal from Adam is now at a Jr high too.. things quickly change... what is disturbing though is when I was looking to see the current ap's at arnold they had a note on there about a student bringing a firearm on march 23!
Behad: If you don't mind me asking, what do you do? I work at the Lyondell and Equistar facilities in Channelview.
Ugh. Mrs Hamilton. That old hag. Yeah, last week, a student at Arnold was found to have a gun in his locker. I was shocked. Stuff like that just doesn't happen out here.
codell.. lol. there were some good teachers at arnold.. and others well.. I have no idea how they got jobs and lasted for SO many years there (actually you might have had these teachers, depending on how long ago you went there). was the gun thing a big news story and all.. Since I'm in Nashville for college, I miss the NW Houston news!
the ones out north of I10 off of Sheldon? I work at the opposite end of Sheldon nest to Inspector's Row by HFOT
Yeah, it was on the news and in the paper. I was quite shocked. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/032304_local_schoolgun.html
btw Behad, when i read about the explosion i went straight to check which polluting company you worked for again
