A Fire Story - Tanks for the Memory

Background: The town of West, near Waco in Texas, is a town of about 3000 people – about the same size that Pocomoke was in the 1950s. In 2013, a fire and explosion at a fertilizer plant in West killed 15 people, injured over 150, and destroyed or damaged almost 300 houses. When this made national news, I immediately remembered an incident from the 1950s and wondered, “How close did we come to this type of tragedy in Pocomoke?”

No research was done for this article. The following is based purely on memory. But memories are not always accurate. They alter a little each time we replay them mentally; they get diluted and tarnished by similar experiences over the years; they may even be affected by things we see in the movies or on TV. So the following is a brief description of events as I remember them. I hope that perhaps someone who has the facts can verify or contradict – as appropriate – any of what I describe below.

It was an afternoon and I was at my Dad’s store on Clarke Ave, next to Adkins across from the intersection with Walnut street. It was  sunny as I recall, perhaps during the summer as I was not usually at the store on weekdays during the school year, but maybe this was a Saturday. Just don’t know – no Idea what year it was or how old I was.

Fire sirens sounded Not that unusual an event.  But soon the engines came racing past our store and headed out Clarke Ave towards the railroad tracks. Over the next 30 minutes we watched a parade of fire equipment from nearby towns trek past our store; Princess Anne, Snow Hill, perhaps Onancock. We watched as a small but steady stream of people on foot headed out Clarke Ave.  Someone stopped in the store. “It’s that fertilizer place, Tilghman’s, she’s ablaze!”

I went out on the sidewalk in front of our store to see a wide column of dense, black smoke towering over the landscape, With each new puff, the column grew incrementally wider. I decided to walk up the street to get a better look. “Don’t get too close!” my Mom reminded me.

By the time I got up by the railroad tracks, some kind of perimeter had been established around the fire scene and the crowd was held back at least a block, perhaps two. But the thick column of smoke continued to billow skyward, with occasional flames visibly dancing through the roof of the structure. But next to the building sat a rather large metal tank; similar to what might sit next to an oil heated house, but larger. A fine mist of water was being directed towards that tank. The following are shards of conversation from people standing around me, obviously paraphrased after so much time:

“They have to keep that tank cool.”

“They’re wettin’ it down for sure.”

“It’s full of ammonia.”

“They can’t let the fire get to it.”

“If it blows, it’ll level the whole plant.”

“If it blows it might level more’ n that.”

“Could blow the town.”

While the latter was probably exaggerated, at that point, I decided that standing there was probably not the best of ideas and headed back to my Dad’s store. After a while, I looked up the street and now saw only thin wisps of black smoke rising, and eventually they were gone as well. Someone else stopped in the store and said that two engines were going to remain at the scene overnight.

Long after I no longer lived in Pocomoke, I would often drive out Clarke Ave past the site of this fire whenever I visited; I don’t know whether that plant was rebuilt and put back in use, but I do know that for many years, well into the 1970s and I think 1980s, I would see that tank, that seemingly caused so much consternation that day – still sitting ubiquitously there. A quick look now at google maps and street view shows no sign of the tank, or the plant, but I do think that the area once occupied by the plant can still be identified.

Would love to hear from anyone who knows the facts, and I certainly wont be upset if someone has information that contradicts anything I have written here; but how close did we come to disaster that day?

(Reader comment)

Anonymous said...

I remember the incident and, yes, the fertilizer complex has been razed. At one time I knew the owner, Nash Strudwick, and all the employees on a first name basis. I, too, am going strictly from memory with no research.

I think it was the anhydrous ammonia tank and that would have been pressurized just like a propane tank. I know anhydrous is NH3 and does not particularly like water so the fireman were probably trying to cool down the tank rather than put the actual fire out. Tilghman also stored huge quantities of ammonium nitrate and that was the stuff that exploded in the Texas City explosion and was also used in the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh. Ammonium nitrate is usually granules called "prills" and they will explode from compression or extended heat but, for some reason, they are relatively stable in just plain fire.

One additional hazard in the area is the petroleum dock behind the fertilizer warehouse. C. K. Duncan had four large pipes that ran underground from the river to their facility on Railroad Avenue. They were for kerosene, #2 fuel oil, regular gasoline and high test gasoline. A small tanker would come up the river and offload at that dock. At one time Tilghman also received dry fertilizer from a small freighter at the same dock.