Plan B Forum

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89d4zw8704o

Eighteen people are missing after a blast at a military explosives manufacturing facility in Tennessee on Friday.

Surely, "Eighteen people are misting . . .?"

I saw the photos of the facility before and after - I guess the only consolation for their loved ones is that they surely died instantaneously.

We had a project to remediate an old explosives manufacturing plant in Israel 30+ years ago. They had made all kinds of military and civilian explosives there: when they built it in 1950 it was way outside Tel Aviv on a cliff top: when we were there it was prime real estate on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and ripe for redevelopment. Every explosive under the sun had been manufactured there: RDX, HMX, nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, nitroguanide and others I can't remember. I remember going around the site with a UXO (unexploded ordnance) expert. His instructions were simple. "Walk behind me. Walk in my footsteps. And don't fucking touch anything." Rest assured I walked behind him. I walked in his footsteps. And I didn't fucking touch anything.

I can’t imagine working at a place like this, I would be sick with stress every single minute of every shift. But if you aren’t sick with stress over the insane dangerousness of the job, then you maybe get complacent and that’s when some small mistake makes the whole place obliterate.

They aren’t ever going to be able to figure out what happened here, right? I mean, how could they possibly?

They aren’t ever going to be able to figure out what happened here, right? I mean, how could they possibly?

Before I went to law school I was a chemist and performed investigations on industrial accidents (also transportation accidents); there usually are a lot of clues that are there if qualified people look for them. I'm pretty sure they could get a handle on what happened, but don't know if they will.

But if you aren’t sick with stress over the insane dangerousness of the job, then you maybe get complacent

Complacency is a major cause of accidents (as it often also leads people to conclude safety regulations just exist to make their job harder, and they ignore them). Another major cause is a lack of proper equipment maintenance, or personnel training for that matter, to save money.

Re complacency, I recall a common practice when I worked for the railroads was to take everyone's cigarettes and lighters/matches at derailments since most trains carried a lot of hazardous materials (and many people will just reflexively light up without thinking); I recall hearing a (perhaps apocryphal) story of a guy lighting up next to a leaking LPG tank car and going up like a flare. There was also an old story about manufacturing dynamite during WW1--basically nitroglycerin was made by adding the organic to nitrating acid slowly--it was done manually and it was essential to monitor the temperature; because they had 3 shifts, accidents often occurred at night when people fell asleep during the process. This occurred whether they had a chair or stood (usually leaning against the fume hood), until some clever guy came up with a one legged stool that the operator could sit on, but would topple over if (s)he snoozed). An elegant solution, but it showed how complacent people can become.