Crisis Management: An Analysis of the 1947 Texas City Explosion Kevin K. Rice Columbia Southern University Abstract Texas City became the site of the worst industrial catastrophe in United States history when two merchant ships, the SS Grandcamp and SS High Flyer, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded on the 16 and 17 April 1947. The Texas City disaster remains the worst industrial accident in US history. This disaster occurred prior to the realization that government entities needed to have emergency management plans. Since this major accident, major improvements have been made in emergency management ;however, the possibility of a disaster is always relative to the seriousness of the threat. This paper is a recounting of the events surrounding the accident, both before, during, and after.
Climate change seems to be one of the major forces of their possible extinction. There have been too many large oil spills over the years that have also placed their existing population
from Mexico. In the Hermine storm reports, MSNBC and Fox News mention that the cattle-ranching region of Mexico where the storm is projected to hit, is one of the most dangerous in Mexico's turf war between two drug cartels. It is the same area 72 migrants were killed two weeks ago in what is believed to be Mexico's worst drug gang massacre to date. CNN mentioned nothing of the incident, sticking only to the news reports of the storm. CNN did mention that Hermine could dump 4 to 8 inches of rain over northeastern Mexico and south Texas and as much as 12 inches in isolated areas, with the potential for flooding and mudslides, especially in northeastern Mexico.
Atlantic coast and in northern Alaska. The lifted ban was aimed at increasing the United States' energy independence and reducing foreign imports so that it would not need to rely so heavily on other countries for energy supplies. The U.S. Atlantic coast could hold as much as 37 trillion cubic feet of gas and 4 billion barrels of oil, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates. But less than a month later, the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig sank about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Venice, Louisiana. President Obama recently announced during his weekly address that no permits for drilling new deepwater wells will be issued until a 30-day safety and environmental review of all deepwater operations in the Gulf of Mexico has been completed.
1990- National Environmental Education Act authorizes funding of environmental education programs at elementary and secondary school level. 1994- UN Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, Egypt. 1997- Meeting of 161 nations in Kyoto, Japan, to negotiate a treaty to help slow global warming. 2010- An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed unabated for three months in 2010, and may be continuing to seep and it is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. 2011- The Nuclear disaster in Japan was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.
Should America Seek Alternative Energy Sources Cars and factories put off many different poisonous gasses into our air. These can make people very sick, cause plants and animals to die, and causes our atmosphere to become hazardous while depleting the Ozone layer. Another problem is oil spillage. About 1,000 barrels of oil seep per day into our ocean waters. About 11,000 barrels of U.S. oil got spilled from tankers from 1980 to 1998.
[Stephen] Horton [a seismologist at the University of Memphis] and others investigated a swarm of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, including one of magnitude 4.7, in an area of central Arkansas where fracking was being conducted. The scientists found that the earthquakes were probably caused by fracking and the disposal of waste liquids from the process into other wells.” (Mead) Furthermore, air pollution is another factor that must be taken into consideration. Near the end of the well development process, something happens called flaring. Flaring is used to get rid of the waste gas that is not able to be used. The gas is purposefully set on fire, leaving flames to spew far into the sky, burning for several days continually.
The Gulf Oil Spill For my paper, I have chosen to examine the topic of deep-water oil drilling, an issue that has risen to the surface in a significant way since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the Gulf Coast on April 20, 2010. The event was in the news continually, as it should have been, because it was the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States. Previously, the Exxon Valdez Oil spill was the worst catastrophic event regarding oil drilling, and I have paid much attention to that over the years, boycotting Exxon and recently learning that some of the original defendants in the lawsuit had died, waiting for a resolution of that incident over 20 years ago. The recent oil spill has been catastrophic; besides
How was this disaster a failure of regulation? What should be done to make regulations more effective, especially when they are politically unpopular with the business community? It was on April 20, 2010 that an explosion killing 11 workers on the platform, caused by a methane gas leak that eventually would sink an oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico and set into motion the largest oil spill in the U.S.A. and two days later an oil slick would start to spread at the former site of the oil drilling platform. Weeks after the explosion British Petroleum (BP) did attempted to plug the leak under water but ever attempt failed, they then tried to put a dome like fitting over the valves that were leaking but failed due to the interference of the methane that was coming out, a third plan was enacted to try and pump mud into the well which they called “top kill” but this also
To Drill or Not to Drill This is one of the United States biggest debates, and it will continue for years to come. The United States has been using coal, oil and natural gas for their energies. Some people are afraid that these sources will be used up and the United States will be dependent on a foreign country to provide us with these sources. On one hand, the debate is that these three sources have been used for millions of years. Changing to alternative sources would be too expensive.