What Caused the 1959 Explosion in Roseburg, Oregon?

[Integral]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbFzdyrSg44"

I was 9yrs old sleeping out with my best friend. At 1am we were woke up by an explosion 3miles away in downtown Roseburg.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Fifty years ago!

Wow, you're old.

 

[Astronuc]

Something blew up in the rail yard?

That reminds me of the boxcars of bombs that went off sometime around 1973 in Roseville, California.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseville,_California#Notable_events

 

[turbo]

Wow! 6.5 tons of explosives parked in a down-town area overnight? Pretty reckless.

 

[edward]

Most of the 500 pounders shipped to Vietnam passed right through downtown Tucson.

No one knew that the Southern Pacific railroad was transporting them until an accident outside of town caused a number of them to explode.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=886&dat=19730525&id=rCUMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=v1ADAAAAIBAJ&pg=6744,816595

Edited

 

[edward]

Something blew up in the rail yard?

That reminds me of the boxcars of bombs that went off sometime around 1973 in Roseville, California.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseville,_California#Notable_events

Southern Pacific had three separate incident within a short period of time in "73"

 

[Integral]

http://myblogadventures.blogspot.com/2005/10/roseburg-blast-of-1959-highlighted-in.html"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseburg,_Oregon"
Gerretsen Building Supply was near the railroad tracks. The area of town totally destroyed was mostly old warehouses. Were it not for the dead and injured, some felt this was one of the best things that ever happened to Roseburg. We got a new bridge and roads plus a much cleaned up area of town.

We also lost the old Jr Hi school that my mom attended.

There is a ridge about 250m high relative to town that was between our house and the explosion. We could see flames over the ridge. That morning we has no idea what had happened, my friend theorized about a plane crash, others though we were under attack.

 

[Astronuc]

During the late 60's, and particularly during the early 1970's, there were a series of serious railroad accidents (derailments) involving hazardous chemicals, like vinyl chloride, and volative hydrocarbons.

Here's one example - http://www.lib.niu.edu/2004/ih090804.html

In Texas and Lousiana, there were several derailments resulting in the destruction of a lot of property and numerous fatalities.

I remember one just south of Houston at the Mykawa Yard. A local news station was filming a firefighter on a ladder that was raised over a line of freightcars so the fireman could spray water on the tankcars which were burning. Then there was a tremendous blast - and a fireball engulfed the firefighter on the ladder. He was killed. He had no protection.

That was one of several incidents where the chemicals could not be identified because they only used placards on the cars. That didn't help when they were on fire.

As a result laws regarding the transport of hazardous material were changed, and there was a national registry and hotline for hazardous material. In addition, coupler hardware on tankcars was changed to an interlocking type such that one car could not jump and puncture a tankcar carry hazardous cargo.

 

[Integral]

The grandfather of all Ammonium Nitrate explosions was http://www.local1259iaff.org/disaster.html" in 1947. A ship load went up.

 

[Moonbear]

Wow, impressive...a video on YouTube where the person filming actually knows how to hold a camera steady, slowly pan, and then hold steady again so you can actually tell what's in the footage without getting motion sick!

Oh, and pretty impressive footage of the aftermath too...not that I know anything about this event...what caused the explosion?

 

[Integral]

Wow, impressive...a video on YouTube where the person filming actually knows how to hold a camera steady, slowly pan, and then hold steady again so you can actually tell what's in the footage without getting motion sick!

Oh, and pretty impressive footage of the aftermath too...not that I know anything about this event...what caused the explosion?

A truck load of explosives was parked outside of a building supply for the next morning delivery. A trash fire started in the building supply that got to the truck. The resulting explosion resulted in 14 deaths and 125 injuries. I believe that the only part of the truck found was the front axle wrapped around a tree 6 blocks from the explosion. To the best of my knowledge it is still there.

Aren't the cars in that video a hoot!