America's Worst Worksite Disasters

Thursday, October 9, 2014 | 0

When measured in lives lost during concentrated periods of time, these accidents are the worst ones in America. (The occupational victims of asbestos are not included; they deserve their own epitaph in a future column.)

• April 16, 1947: Texas City, Texas, dockside explosion takes close to 600 lives

One of the largest non-nuclear explosions in American history, this accident began early in the day when a fire broke out on the French-registered ship, the SS Grandcamp, detonating the docked ship's cargo – approximately 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate.

Its cargo exploded, starting a chain reaction of fires and explosions in other ships and nearby oil-storage facilities and killing at least 581 people, including all but one member of the Texas City Fire Department. Not all the bodies were recovered, rendering an accurate fatality count impossible.

• Sept. 11, 2001: The World Trade Center towers collapse, burying 403 public safety workers

Terrorists attacking the World Trade Center killed 2,973 persons, including 403 New York City public safety responders. While the deaths could be construed as occupational, the deaths of public safety workers were most definitely arising out of and in the course of employment. Their deaths were all the more painful given that New York City was put on notice during a 1993 bomb attack that its fire and police departments were dangerously unable to communicate easily, but they had failed to remedy the problem.

• 1927: Hawks Nest, West Virginia, tunnel leads to hundreds of deaths from dust

As part of a dam project, a tunnel was constructed to handle the flow of a diverted river. Construction on the three-mile tunnel began in 1927, employing largely black workers, who were not provided protective equipment to guard against dust. Many contracted silicosis-related diseases and soon died. The minimum death count was 201, but total estimates exceeded 476.

• Dec. 6, 1907: Fairmont Coal Company mine explosion in Monongah, West Virginia, takes 362 lives

The nation’s worst mining disaster killed 362 miners at the Consolidation Coal Company mine. Mining has remained for decades the most likely location of multiple workplace deaths from single incidents. The Sago Mine collapse on Jan. 2, 2006, in Sago, West Virginia, killed 12 workers. The worst mine disaster in the past 40 years occurred on April 5, 2010, at the Upper Big Branch underground mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, killing 29 of the 31 miners who were underground at the time.

• Feb. 2, 1982: Offshore oil rig founders, causing 84 deaths

The Mobil-operated Ocean Ranger rig, 166 miles east of Newfoundland, failed, and the entire crew sought to escape by life rafts. Nobody was wearing protective suits, which have since become standard equipment on rigs and watercraft, and they all perished. When the Gulf of Mexico-based Deep Water Horizon rig blew up on April 20, 2010, 11 workers died.

Lesser but not forgotten tragedies include:

• The Willow Creek Power Plant in St. Marys, West Virginia, the largest vertical construction disaster, killed 45 workers in 1978 when scaffolding collapsed.
• The Texas City British Petroleum refinery explosion in 2005, which took 17 lives.
• The Imperial Sugar explosion in Port Wentworth, Georgia, killed 13 in 2008.
• A train collision in Granite, South Carolina, ripped open a Norfolk and Southern Railroad tank car containing chlorine, killing nine workers, in 2005.
• A South Canyon wildfire near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, killed 14 firefighters in 1994, prompting a major overhaul of emergency response guidelines through America.
• A small passenger plane crash in 2005, caused by a plane stalling on its approach to the Pueblo, Colorado, airport, killing eight passengers on a corporate visit and crew. 
• A fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, in 2014, killing 15 people, some of whom were workers.