Our History: The Villa Rica Explosion

Twelve people perished in the Dec. 5, 1957 natural gas blast in downtown Villa Rica.

http://douglasville.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/our-history-the-villa-rica-explosion

The fateful day was Thursday, December 5, 1957. People were going about their normal business on a weekday...going to the store, keeping appointments, seeing to some early Christmas shopping. Some folks were simply out to cast their ballot in municipal elections going on at the time, but shortly after 11 a.m., a natural gas explosion took the lives of 12 people and injured at least 20 others...changing the lives of so many in an instant.

In 1997, the 40th anniversary of the explosion, the Douglas Sentinel published an article recounting that fateful day. Many folks remembered the sound of the explosion...“a loud whoomp, that was more like a clap than a bang...and others said that the town suddenly looked as if it had been hit by an atom bomb.”

The Villa Rica Explosion

http://mymindisongeorgia.blogspot.com/2008/12/villa-rica-explosion.html

Around 11:00 a.m. on December 5, 1957, a natural gas leak under Berry’s Pharmacy caused an explosion that destroyed four buildings and damaged several others in Villa Rica’s downtown. The explosion killed twelve and injured twenty. The tragedy highlighted the need for both an organized local emergency response unit and the use of odor in the natural gas supply.  

Newsreel 1957 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpe9V4pzUVY

Photo slideshow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klRWphf0-YA

Tragedy in '57: Newly found photos depict Villa Rica disaster, December 5, 2013  

http://www.times-georgian.com/villa-rican/article_29c0090e-5dbc-11e3-b5b5-001a4bcf6878.html

In 2013, the damage is long repaired, but the tragedy won’t ever be forgotten.

“It was tragic, sad, but it’s our history and we need to remember those that were killed,” said Bailey. “We need to remember the lessons learned.”

More

"Lessons Learned from AHERA: Asbestos Management in Schools" Dr. Charles Levenstein 
at the 9th Annual International Asbestos Awareness Conference, March 22-24, 2013 in Washington, DC.
 www.adao.us

1. Passing a law does not solve the problem

2. Management (schools and elsewhere) may not be competent to manage highly hazardous technology.

3. Only vigilance by workers (teachers) and users (parents) can ensure compliance -- and sometimes may not be enough.

See the complete talk at LINK 

More at ADAO 2013 Annual International Asbestos Awareness Conference Agenda & Videos

Lessons Learned: Lafayette Indiana Natural Gas Explosion (video)

http://www.pipelineawareness.org/featured-video-lafayette-case-study

On November 27, 2002 the Lafayette Fire Department responded to a "routine" gas leak.  Dispatch reported that a construction crew struck a natural gas line while installing a traffic signal light.  At least four separate explosions destroyed four homes that day.  Responders from the Lafayette Fire Department share their experience and key takeaways in the video below including information about how to plan for the unexpected, anticipating migrating gas, proper gear, clear communication and the importance of ICS and advance partnerships with operators.

 

.

Remembering a chlorine derailment, puresafety.com, Dr. Scott Harris

It doesn’t seem like eight years since I had a major run-in with a railcar of “skull and crossbones” material, but today was the day.  At that time I was a Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) with the U.S. EPA in Dallas, TX.  FOSCs are the lead for agency responses to oil and hazardous substance releases and have full authority to direct all public and private resources to stop or prevent a release.

Read more...

Go to the EPA website for a close-up look at this unique event.  I also highly recommend the lessons learned report prepared for the National Response Team.
–
UL PureSafety’s software and information solutions empower employees to improve workforce health and safety.

 

Top Five Lessons I’ve Learned Working With Schools In A Crisis NEA HIN

www.neahin.org

Resources- School Crisis Guide

IT'S TIME TO GET SMART about chemical management. Too many schools, old and new, harbor large quantities of explosives, flammables and other hazardous chemicals in labs, closets, classrooms and storerooms.

TAKE ACTION to improve your school's chemical security. 

START CONVERSATIONS* to raise awareness of resources that can save your school money and help your school prevent explosions and fires – from accidents and intentional acts.

IDENTIFY AND ELIMINATE HAZARDS before there is an accident and people get hurt.

REACH OUT to school officials, other parents, your local health department, fire department, and state agencies who are responsible for helping schools manage and dispose of chemical hazards.

PREVENT EXPLOSIONS. Ask your principal these questions:

1. Does my school have a chemical inventory?
2. Does my school have a comprehensive chemical management plan?
3. Does my school have a chemical hygiene officer?

If the answer to any of these questions is "no," your school needs an immediate checkup and safety drill.


*Bring the Lessons of the 1937 Texas School Explosion to Your School

Send comments and questions to me at healthykids@rcn.com

Odor now added to natural gas
http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/stories/03192007_london_gas_odor.html

By MIKE ELSWICK  Monday, March 19, 2007

If a positive angle can be found in the tragic explosion of the London School on March 18, 1937, it could be that hundreds, if not thousands, of lives have probably been saved as a result, according to Archie McDonald.

"The major positive that came from the New London school explosion was legislation requiring gas companies to add an odor to their product so anyone can determine when natural gas is leaking or not properly utilized," said McDonald, a historian long associated with Stephen F. Austin State University who has researched the topic.

Naturally, natural gas has no odor. The smell today many associate with the release of natural gas comes from a malodorant agent added to the gas just for the purpose of allowing it to be smelled should a leak develop.

What some people describe as a rotting cabbage smell usually associated with natural gas comes not from natural gas itself but from mercaptans, which are added to natural gas during processing.

The London School can be credited with instigating, or at least speeding up and stimulating, laws resulting in requiring the odor agent to be added, McDonald said.

The April 1937 edition of the Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association ran a 14-page summary of the London School disaster of the previous month. Among the conclusions in the report prepared by H. Oram Smith with the Texas Inspection Bureau, was that "the value of a distinctive malodorant in all gas supply systems by which leaking gas may be readily detected is clearly evident."

Smith wrote there was only one explosion associated with the disaster and no fire.

"Yet there is evidence of a most terrific force in the great extent of devastation and loss of life that came almost instantly; testimony of bodies tossed 75 feet in the air; an automobile 200 feet distant crushed like an eggshell under a two-ton slab of concrete that had been hurled from the building," Smith wrote. He said at the established point of origin of the blast the explosion had to "break through an 8-inch concrete floor slab before starting on its path of destruction."

In the Texas Railroad Commission archives covering a summary of the agency's activities in the 1930s was an item indicating enforcement of the new rules requiring odorants was enacted, said Ramona Nye, spokeswoman for the agency.

"As a result of this tragedy, the 45th Legislature enacted House Bill 1017 ... giving the Railroad Commission the authority to adopt rules and regulations pertaining to the odorization of natural gas or liquefied petroleum gases," the commission archives said. "On July 27, 1937, Gas Utilities Docket 122 was adopted and the commission began enforcement of odorization requirements for natural gas."

In May 1937, the Texas Railroad Commission, at the time referred to as the most powerful board of resource regulators in the world, had passed an order in memory of those killed in New London that continues to impact the lives of people worldwide.

Shortly after the disaster, the Texas Legislature met in emergency session and enacted the Engineering Registration Act, now rewritten as the Texas Engineering Practice Act. Public pressure was on the government to regulate the practice of engineering because of the faulty installation of the natural gas connection at the London School believed to have resulted in the natural gas leak.

Many other states soon enacted rules requiring an odorant be added to natural gas, and later in 1937 federal requirements were made law, Smith said.

According to the Texas Railroad Commission, the odorants are considered non-toxic in the extremely low concentrations occurring in natural gas delivered to the end user.

Successful Strategies for Creating a Culture of Laboratory Safety
by Bryan Connors, M.S., C.I.H., H.E.M.

Felony charges have been filed against the University of California and a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) chemistry professor in connection with a laboratory fire that killed a staff research assistant three years ago. The L.A. County district attorney’s office has filed criminal charges against the chemistry professor responsible for the training and supervision of the research assistant, and the regents of the University of California with three counts each of willfully violating occupational health and safety standards, resulting in the research assistant’s death. 

This tragedy has prompted universities and biotech facilities across the nation to scrutinize their own laboratory safety programs to ensure that they are adequately protecting employees from injury. EH&E manages environmental health and safety (EH&S) programs for several large research institutions in Boston and Cambridge, MA and understands these concerns. Similar incidents reported by the media have driven our staff to conduct internal reviews of our own programs to identify vulnerabilities and make improvements. This article offers insights from our internal reviews and resulting efforts on strategies we’ve found to be successful at improving safety program performance...

Continue reading here

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Environmental Health and Engineering Webinar

Best Practice Strategies for Laboratory Safety Programs 

2/7/12 EST   Pice: $0.00

Learn best practices and proven strategies for implementing, maximizing, and tracking the effectiveness of lab safety management programs. 

More information

Registration Deadline:  2/7/2012 10:00:00 AM 


Register Online

 

The aftermath of a school explosion

January 13, 2012  Science room mishap prompts HAZMAT response at David Douglas High

August 12, 1985 Science Class...

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close:

The aftermath of a school explosion

NYTIMES Magazine, February 27, 2005. "The Rescue Artist," by Deborah Solomon. Below is an excerpt from an article about Jonathan Safran Foer, Author of Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 

… "Astoundingly, he insists that his development as a writer was shaped less by his parents and by his genetic endowments, less even by the novelists and poets he loves, than by a single event: the Explosion, as he calls it. ...

[His email] began: “Firstly, let me say that these are, quite literally, the first words I’ve ever written about this. Ever.  Literally not a single world.” Foer told me later that he had composed the message at home, at the desk in his cluttered basement workshop, his thin face streaked with tears. The letter recounted, in some detail, the event that split the idyll of his childhood in two: the years before Aug. 12, 1985, and the years after.

That bright Monday morning began innocently enough. Foer, a boy of 8, was attending a summer program at Murch Elementary, a pubic school not far from his home. The first lesson of the day was a chemistry project, and in an act of  nearly unbelievable carelessness, the teacher laid out bowls of combustible materials.  The goal was to make sparklers...

Read more: The aftermath of a school explosion

Includes The Washington Post article: $11 Million Awarded for Boy Burned in School Lab

Nominate a Healthy Schools Hero 2012

 

The Cenotaph

For Immediate Release

Attn:  Science educators, STEM advocates, professionals in health and safety, lab safety, community security, IAQ, IPM, emergency and risk management, asthma educators, first responders, school administrators, advocates, parents…

Do you know someone whose sense of responsibility, inspirational leadership, and exemplary persistence and courage protects children from hazards and unhealthy school or community conditions?

March 18, 2012 will be the 75th anniversary of the 1937 Texas School Explosion, the worst school disaster in U.S. history -- a gas explosion in the small East Texas town of New London that killed 319 people, mostly students, just minutes before the end of the school day.  (What was the 1937 Texas School Explosion?)

By nominating a Hero you can help make March 18 an annual day that brings the Lessons of the 1937 Texas School Explosion to our nation's schools and celebrates the leadership that can save lives. See: "Set aside a special day each year as a memorial..."

Send your hero's name, contact information, and your hero's story by February 15, 2012 to healthykids@rcn.com

The Healthy Kids Healthy Schools Hero Award was created as an annual opportunity to tell the story of New London Texas' preventable tragedy, to promote inspirational examples of leadership and partnerships, and to start conversations to identify and eliminate chemical hazards and unhealthy conditions that put children at risk today.

Break the Silence.   

The Heroes Award is part of an ongoing campaign to bring "safety" from the margins to the core of school curriculum and community culture.  

The goal is to strengthen parent involvement and community partnerships to establish the 21st century standards and safeguards that can protect children from deadly explosions, fires, chemical spills and toxic exposures. 

This cenotaph, erected in 1939 is the memorial to victims of the explosion. The sculptural block of Texas granite depicts twelve life-size figures, representing children coming to school, bringing gifts and handing in homework to two teachers. Around the inside of the base are the individual names of those who died.  The Egyptians defined a cenotaph as a symbolic tomb, honoring the dead but not containing the body. It is a sepulchral monument erected to commemorate a person or persons buried elsewhere.