NBCDFW By Matt DeGrood 4/21/2019
This week marks 72 years since thousands of lives were changed forever in the United States' deadliest industrial accident, that day still seems fresh -- remembered in vivid and awful detail -- by those who lived through it.
"I was walking to school that day -- we lived at the corner of Dock Road and Third Street," said Ernestine Garza Moreno, who was 17 at the time of the disaster. "When I felt the first blast, by the grace of God, I cried out `save me' and threw a coat over me. When I finally got up, everyone around was dead except for me."
The Galveston County Daily News reports Moreno was one of about 100 survivors of the 1947 Texas City disaster who gathered Saturday to remember those who died that day.
The Texas City disaster, which began on April 16, 1947, was the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history and one of the largest non-nuclear explosions. It originated with a midmorning fire onboard the French-registered vessel SS Grandcamp docked in the port carrying cargo of about 2,200 tons of ammonium nitrate when it detonated.
Shortly after, the High Flyer, another ship, exploded. The blasts were felt in Galveston. Houses were shaken off their foundations.
The initial blast and subsequent fires and explosions in other ships and nearby oil-storage facilities killed at least 581 people, including all but one member of the Texas City Fire Department.
More:
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Survivors-Remember-Deadly-1947-Texas-City-Industrial-Blast-508827261.html