Making waves

If you want to know what's at stake in securing U.S. ports from terrorist attack, consider what took place in Texas City, Texas, on a clear spring morning in 1947. The industrial port city 10 miles from Galveston was a conduit for raw materials fueling European reconstruction following World War II. When a fire broke out on the French-crewed freighter Grandchamp early on April 16, curious spectators flocked to the waterfront to watch the spectacle.

When 51,000 unmarked bags of ammonium nitrate aboard the ship exploded in the fire a short time later, the force was so great it knocked people to their knees in Galveston. The blast caused a tidal wave, sprayed shards of steel across Texas City, and set off dozens of secondary explosions. A nearby chemical plant became an inferno, causing another fertilizer-laden ship to explode hours later. Before the day was over, hundreds of people would be dead, thousands would be maimed, freighters would disintegrate and two small planes would be knocked out of the sky by the force of the explosions. It would take a week to put out the fires.