CSB Safety Video: Blast Wave in Danvers

During the early morning hours of November 22, a powerful explosion destroyed the CAI/Arnel ink and paint manufacturing facility in Danvers, Massachusetts. Scores of nearby homes and businesses were damaged, some beyond repair. A number of residents were hospitalized. There were no injuries in the plant, which was unoccupied at the time.

[@gloomyblackfur399]

"I bought my home, right next to your industrial site, and I can't stand the noise your safety equipment makes. Turn it off!"

[@jonmeray713]

Gloomy Blackfur lmfao

[@YuraEnjoji]

The noisy neighbor almost got turned off as a result...

[@Matt_TX]

Thats 90% of the people that live on the gulf coast lmao

[@BrumBrumBryn]

Happens a lot near stadiums and speedways

[@williamhendrix3253]

shutting off the fans due to neighbor complaints is the most masshole thing I’ve ever heard

[@komitadjie]

"Turned off the ventilation fans to address noise complaints from the surrounding area..." Well that got noisy quick, now, didn't it?

[@ggurks]

The turned off ventilation wasn't the cause of the accident though...

[@Mobilevidboy]

@@ggurks I would think it would have been less likely that an explosion occurred if they were on, such that there was less gas in the building.

[@GeorgeWiman]

A hazard analysis would have highlighted the importance of the ventilation, leading to a project to make them quieter.

[@emma-eventing]

this is a great example how one entity's lax approach to risk tolerance can massively impact the safety of every other entity in the community. maybe regulating risky behavior is actually a good thing after all....

[@benm12310]

@@ggurks without gas build up you can’t have that devastating of a shockwave

[@chancellor170]

The guy's house blows up, "Wow it's really windy in here"...

[@wyllyoubemyfriend]

LMAO

[@DK281ify]

Well, now we know he wasn't the one complaining about the ventilation fan noise that allowed this to happen.

[@Kawka1122]

Thats normal phenomenon

[@edwelndiobel1567]

Dudes a heavy sleeper.

[@WaterCrane]

Most likely he was still half asleep and the blast probably deafened him temporarily. All in all, he was bewildered and couldn't immediately work out what just happened.

[@ep20091]

"I don't know if we were at war, if we were being bombed..." Yeah, because Danvers MA is at the top of the list to take-out.

[@suspicionofdeceit]

Eric Patterson Lol, I though the same thing, lots of combat in Danvers.

[@Xezlec]

I shouted at the screen "who the hell would've declared war on fuckin' DANVERS"

[@jeremyfowler1519]

The inmates of Essex county jail!!

[@LastAvailableAlias]

Ft Devens is at it again!

[@Maddin1313]

Putin, launching the nukes: "F this hick town in particular!"

[@nobodyspecial313]

"The process vents into the room." "Heating is controlled by a manual valve with no failsafes." "There were no vapor monitors." "A suburb was built as close as possible to a site that stores huge amounts of flammables." WTF? At least no one died.

[@231mac]

Sir Mutton Chops They don't call it Massoftwoshits for nothin'. That state is a shithole.

[@thedolphin5428]

Yep, that ain't accidental "low awareness" as many in the video stated. It's criminal neglect arising from lack of commonsense and the profit motive.

[@ElTurbinado]

Klaa2 yeah like my pants

[@Acidlib]

@@ElTurbinado on the bright side, contrary to what @klaa2 just said, after the accident in your pants finally occurs, I'll bet that you'll feel pretty "relieved"

[@ElTurbinado]

Dylan Kelly "Friendship is like peeing your pants: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings."

[@mrreymundo5383]

I've watched many of these CSB case studies and using my sharply honed powers of observation been able to isolate a common factor in all these disasters: The techs in the footage all wear the same color uniforms. My recommendation based on this exhaustive research is that those uniforms be changed to a different color. This should result in the saving of many lives. I don't ask for any remuneration for my invaluable contribution, but a statue in my name would be appreciated.

[@V8SplashMan]

I can't believe how stupid we all are for not thinking of this first. You sir, need to be talking on this video.

[@homefront3162]

Mr Reymundo Very Observant, you will save lives for sure

[@pieordi]

you'll get your statue

[@will904420]

They all look like Tim Tebow.

[@Kumquat_Lord]

Get this man a slice of Ukraine

[@denn606]

I had a similar event. I'm a 45 year senior maintenance tech, and while making my rounds one day at the plant, I discovered one of our propane fired boilers had blown out the diaphram in the feed gas valve. A 2" line was dumping full presure gas into the parking lot. I looked out the door and the lot was shimmering a hundred yards accross and up to the roofline. I imediately closed the infeed valve, but I was scared shitless till the wind dissipated the gas. The blast, had it happened, would have been similar.

[@1597B]

Good on you getting the valve off. You stopped an emergency before it could happen.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

@@1597B I cannot imagine the pucker factor until the gas dissipated...

[@NiceMuslimLady]

THAT could have turned out bad. An EXPLOSIVELY bad day!!! Good thing you spotted it!!!!!!

[@r0cketplumber]

No excess flow valves?

[@su-25frogfoot74]

@@r0cketplumber boiler and pipe no longer connect do to failure of part. pipe that feed propane do not know this. pipe keep feeding propane. propane form big cloud.

[@davidhoekje7842]

Amazing to think of a process of that scale that's not vented, and that's heated by a manual valve with no automatic temperature control, safety shutoff, or alarms.

[@harrickvharrick3957]

and even the technician, let alone 'the last guy in the building' didn't have any idea of what they were doing, what could happen, scale, impact, characteristics of the materials used, they didn't have a clue. nor did anyone that had been running that company, nor did anyone who designed this whole set-up, obviously. and, it is not as if this is secret or hard to find, the type of specs that go for the solvents they use, they just couldn't be bothered, obviously!

[@haroldburrows4770]

No shit, its amazing how dumb they were. I worked in Printing for decades and made sure my space was ventilated, not so much for fire hazard as health from breathing solvents. Can u imagine the shit those guys breathed, no wonder he forgot to close the valve, he may as well have been huffing glue

[@maestrovso]

They treat the steam valve like I treat my sprinkler. I went to bed, and wondered did I or didn't I remember to switch it off. The biggest danger for me is waking up to water soak lawn and higher water bill for the month.

[@NiceMuslimLady]

Actually it WAS vented. But, because neighbours didn't like the NOISE from the ventilation system, they turned them off when they left. That there isn't even like a checklist to go thru. When a plane crash happens and they say "this was supposed have been done, but it wasn't", it ends up being "they just didn't have enough TIME to get to that part".

[@satchemo24]

Living in MA. I would say the last time they updated their system was probably right before the witch trials.

[@howaboutataste]

A checklist. The technology of a pen and paper would have prevented this. CAI was unaware such technology existed.

[@janebarnhardt3503]

Even though they made ink!!!

[@Daplin1]

It's not even that good a comment but I'm getting you to 69 likes

[@danielsteger8456]

stop blaming people for making mistakes!!!! even if it could cost millions of lives, mistakes will be made. blame the designers or staff for not installing failsafes.

[@Gabriel-yd4bq]

@@micaheiber1419 Oh my... Rip Pre-flight checklist

[@nameless-user]

@@danielsteger8456 Both the workers and the company made mistakes. The employee made the mistake that caused the accident, and the company made the mistake of having absolutely no redundancy for managing potentially lethal hazards. One mistake by one worker shouldn’t cause a catastrophe like this.

[@johndoyle4723]

My worst nightmare. I worked 30years in the paint and ink industry, and we would have over 1000 tons of solvents on site, I was the Manager, and often had sleepless nights. Watching the investigation, there were many points of failure, particularly what we in the UK used to call a HAZOP study. (Hazard and operability study). The HAZOP, would have identified many of the problems. I retired without having a major incident,(A few modest minor incidents), no one killed or seriously injured. I would not go back to such a position. Thanks for the video, and glad only material damage, and not fatality.

[@Dwightstjohn-fo8ki]

We in Canada have "Safety Officers" and safety certs. that need to be better built into our culture, but this comes off as something you'd think happened in Pakistan. Mass. is one of the five "thought leader" states; it's a surprise to me that they're so far behind

[@castirondude]

It's hard to do something every day for 30 years without ever forgetting something. Surely we've all left a pot on the stove or left the garden hose running or whatever. That's why you have things like timers, alarms, safety systems, etc.

[@andrewyork3869]

Sounds like you never half assed anything regarding safety, that demands a certain respect.

[@harleyspeedthrust4013]

@@Dwightstjohn-fo8ki get the stick out ur butt mate

[@KezanzatheGreat]

Thank you for taking safety seriously.

[@ferretyluv]

Yeah, I was going to say. The fact that no one died is amazing, considering the damage.

[@jquest43]

I used to work there..they allowed us to smoke in the mixing room..even provided camels for top employee morale!

[@Dwightstjohn-fo8ki]

no shit?? and if I was the new guy and asked what TF was everyone doing the manager would probably BLOW VIRUS IN MY FACE? so it is a corp. management, and INBREEDING problem?? why did you leave??

[@patman0250]

Oh they allowed you to. Then obviously you were part of the moron Squad that were responsible for this catastrophe. I going to smoke my cigarettes next to a flammable vat of chemicals but hey the manager let me do it.

[@silentype3008]

@@patman0250 Just following orders, sir.

[@patman0250]

@@silentype3008 Not likely.

[@silentype3008]

@@patman0250 My nicotine addiction ordered me and I humbly obliged. Besides, a cigarette always has a nice synergy with the body high I get after huffing toxic fumes.

[@RecklessOne11]

I was staying with family in Haverhill, MA that night. I'd just arrived home a little before 2am from my shift at Comcast. I was sitting by my bedroom window, watching some recorded programs (probably 24) and all of a sudden a very strong gust of wind ripped through my room and everything in the house rattled. The doors upstairs, where I was, rattled so loudly, it woke my mother sleeping at the far end of the house on the lower level! Haverhill is 21 miles away from Danvers and the explosion! It was intense, I knew something serious happened far away because I saw and heard nothing. We found out about the explosion the next morning!

[@johnathandoe4951]

@Cloud yeah and? Their story doesn't contradict that

[@MrKeserian]

So, my parents and my grandparents had our boats (Sanctuary and Serendipity) moored in the Danvers River. We weren't part of the marina (we didn't have /that/ much money, we were part of the poor peoples mooring across the river), and our mooring was basically just off the channel in mid river. We were actually aboard when the plant went. My guess is that the shockwave essentially traveled "over" us due to the geometry.

[@JS-xd3iy]

8:53 I like how the glass is pre-broken, as the light shines through and projected on the wall in the shattered pattern before the blast hit.

[@mrswimmytanker7422]

Old animation techniques and limits

[@txkoutdoorfam6911]

Wow

[@Shotesu]

it's really, really heard to animate shattering things. It uses complex models and very powerful computers to do it, or you're looking at hundreds of hours of wait while the computer does the math. it's much easier to just make separate pieces of glass and have them fly outwards. the light generation program then cast shadows from those "different objects" making up the window.

[@alexnewberry8074]

I wonder if the CAI technician heard the blast at his house that night. Can you imagine what went through his mind?

[@231mac]

Yes, I can imagine and I bet it went like this: 'Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck....'

[@elecbush4406]

It is like forgetting to turn off the stove......but worse

[@1compaqedr8]

Paige Winslow I bet he heard and felt the blast and just laid back down to deal with the consequences in the morning

[@oron61]

Honey. Yeah? You know that big drawer in the kitchen? Yeah? In the very back, there's a flask in there with vodka in it. Can you bring it here? Yeah. Honey. Yeah? Put on your slippers. I don't want you cutting your feet on the window glass. Also save some for me. Yeah.

[@s0nnyburnett]

@@1compaqedr8 It's already as bad as it can get.

[@2511jeremy]

What a bunch of brilliant people buy a house by a factory then complain about noise

[@Turidus]

Never should not closing a manual valve lead to such a explosion. Human error happens all the time to everyone. I for example have forgotten to open cooling valves after restarting a machine. You know what happend? The machine did not start. And that machine would have only destroyed itself, not the entire neighborhood.

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

and what would happen if I, or someone, forgets to turn off the gas-knob in his basement apartment below some New York high-rise. I am sure few of those Room-Lets have an automatic cutoff on their stove. whether at home or in the chem industry, check check and re-check!!!! I am sure the engineer guy was under a lot of pressure to do everything at once, its this culture we need to change.

[@jd8600crti]

Stanislav Kostarnov I read this a solid 3 times and it didn’t make any sense a solid 3 times.

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

@@jd8600crti its rather windy(not concise), but I do not see any problems with it syntax-wise. concisely... point 1: if the worker was as careful with his machine as the rest of us are with that which we have in our kitchen no accident would ever have happened. Point 2: poor onsite management, no one checked what he did, the employee himself was not required to recheck his work. Point 3: the worker must have been stressed and in a hurry to work in the way he did. again probably the fault of the management, this time in failing to organised the tasks and the workforce in a better way. next time however, I am no expert so its not really worth reading 3 times over, there are a lot of good comments, some you understand others you don't, that's life!

[@jd8600crti]

Stanislav Kostarnov thanks for the continued mental breakdown I enjoyed reading it

[@nickstaffer5036]

Turidus Finally a concise, clear comment that makes good sense. I am not being sarcastic! Thank you.

[@gregwarner3753]

While working as an environmental inspector for a local town I inspected a small chemical mixing company that used flammable solvent based products. They were not supposed to dump the waste into the public sewer because it could damage the treatment process. OK, what I found was a complete nightmare starting with the 40,000 gal railcar of 100% alcohol next to the building, to near chocking levels of solvent smell inside the building along with the exit doors blocked with bales of cardboard boxes. I asked the owner how the disposed of the waste and he said he just dumped it into the sewer. FWIW this place is still in business. They make auto windshield washing fluid and really cheap vodka and rum. I hope they clean the mixers between batches.

[@ismokkekkush420]

This is why the public’s complaints should mean nothing. “Im sorry that you dont like the noise, but its a safety system so there is nothing i can do”

[@Robbie06261995]

Always amazes me when you get clocks caught up in the disaster that break, recording the exact moment it happened.

[@EoRdE6]

"we thought a bomb went off", "maybe a jet landed in the Marina" and "thought we were at war" I'm sorry you mean to tell me absolutely none of you knew you had bought a house next to a chemical plant?

[@charlestona3865]

Truly, I think that plant would be my first though if I lived there.

[@iamremmie]

This happened when I was 9. I remember waking up at about 2:30 or 3 in the morning to a loud boom and my house shaking like crazy. I thought it was an earthquake! Thankful to be alive

[@biggreenblob]

The fact that 77 homes were destroyed or damaged to the point of being uninhabitable, and yet nobody died truly makes it a miracle.

[@danconser6709]

This is why there should be zoning laws that keep manufacturing & homes from being so closely co-located. In this case, the business was there first; should not have built a residential area around it. Just Crazy!

[@Danitech2999]

No safety interlock for shutting down the steam valve, no safety valve, no Ex Zone class. Just unbelieveble.

[@Tindometari]

You would be startled how many facilities are like this in the industrial parts of the Northeast. Codes change and the facilities just keep getting grandfathered and grandfathered. It's because industry in that region has been in place since Civil War times and there are more old factory sites.

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@Tindometari that and the few that are still in operation are cornerstones of the local job markets. So if the Zoning Board didn't grandfather them in, then they'll be out of a job next election cycle.

[@Tadesan]

I worked at a chemical company that had manually operated steam heated reactors. It's disgusting.

[@Tadesan]

CL Hauthaway and Sons Inc. Myron got burned up there.

[@revenevan11]

It should really be illegal (or enforced better if it's already) for companies to have manual control on an old reactor like that without at least retrofitting it with some automatic safeguards that can shut it off!

[@jimmyshrimbe9361]

“We didn’t know it was the law to be safe!”

[@keyboard_toucher]

apparently it wasn't

[@brianc1481]

I'll never forget that night as long as I live.. I was 2 miles away laying awake in bed staring at the ceiling trying to go back to sleep when the shockwave hit my house. My first thought was an earthquake so I jumped on top of my girlfriend who was asleep next to me. A few seconds after the shockwave passed I heard the explosion. I thought for sure it was the Salem power plant that exploded. Such a strange feeling that night trying to figure out what the hell happened. It was incredible.

[@TactileCoder]

BriGuy Sixty2, dumfuck. That's what you get for living next to an industrial park.

[@RecklessOne11]

I was in Haverhill, 21 miles away and it rattled the entire house and send a huge gust of wind through the window

[@rtrThanos]

BC Sixty2 every time my girl gets mad when I jump on top of her in the middle of the night without warning I calmly, but firmly, read your comment to her. I think she’s starting to get suspicious though, since we’re in PA where there’s no earthquakes unless you live near fracking.

[@Beardwhip]

rtrThanos as a PA native, ive experienced quite a few earthquakes! I have lived all over the southern half of the state, & no matter where we were, there was always a quarry nearby. Daily quakes were not unusual (idk if youd consider that a true quake, but its a good excuse either way)

[@TheMattc999]

TactileCoder Dumbfuck. The spelling is DUMBfuck. Before you insult someone based upon the type of park they live next to, you should take a long, hard look at the type of park you live IN....

[@woodrainmudd7684]

Fan noise? Hold my beer..

[@y2jtopgun]

Adam Pettit that will teach them to complain about fan noise!!

[@bufferbuffer7320]

@@martingo2680 That's bad zoning by the city. There's a reason why industrial (especially heavy and chemical industry) areas are to be separated from residential areas.

[@NiceMuslimLady]

@@martingo2680 That's quite typical. It's like people move into a house next to a railroad track...or near an airport...then complain about "all the damn trains (or planes) keeping me awake at night!" Ok...so...WHY THE HELL DID YOU MOVE THERE?????????????

[@unknownuser1102]

@@NiceMuslimLady to be fair it could have happened the other way too where the plant was built after the houses

[@NiceMuslimLady]

@@unknownuser1102 It could be. However, it's not very likely. These kinds of places have a strong NIMBY effect.

[@willdabeast1386]

I am willing to bet the guy whos window was right next to the plant was the one who complained about the fan rotf LMAO. Oh the irony

[@tashalynn29]

Most likely he was

[@MyHentaiGirl]

Yep Don't fucking build your house near a fucking factory then

[@tashalynn29]

@@MyHentaiGirl its the same type of clowns who move NEAR AND AIRPORT and then cry about the sound of jets. For instance in Burbank there are restrictions on times they can fly in and out. If they violate it they can be fined. I hope those airports are expensive to fly in and out of just for that

[@volvo09]

Probably, but you never know. I live on a quiet dead end street adjacent to an industrial park. The factory behind my house has a vent pipe that hisses about every 15 minutes. It's not quiet. I've never complained about it in 12 years. (It just recently stopped, I think they got a new air compressor). However my neighbor was the one upset who went to a town meeting because he heard a new business was going to store unsold construction equipment in the lot behind my house that he would BARELY SEE, it was ALL behind my house and my other neighbors - with partial visibility from his yard. He bickered and bickered, I heard about them adding fences and whatnot and I think he must have scared them away. I was totally fine with it, trucks don't do anything. But now there is a friggin DANCE STUDIO back there and it drives him nuts! He preferred that to seeing "big loud machines" (how would they be loud if they're parked??) and now he has to listen to the constant "thump thump thump bass 🔊 bass thump" till 9pm every night! Complaining about one thing doesnct always get you better things, plus YOU MOVED IN behind an industrial area, it was there already, while you signed paper... if you care about zoning check it out before you buy your house. It's dedicated as industrial for that reason, so they can make noise.

[@user-kw6fx9su1z]

You seem to forget, he got a better house paid for by the chemical plant. Pretty sure he got the last laugh.

[@jamesragains9194]

I could watch these videos all day, usually puts me to sleep. But I eventually watch them over again

[@henry8smallwood]

Or "How To Build A Fuel-Vapor Bomb in Danvers." BTW, love your music.

[@noah3384]

henry8smallwood if you like this music, check out the soundtrack to the game Splice.

[@codymoncrief8478]

This site was so much less "safe" than all the others in these videos, yet nobody died?

[@shannawallace7855]

Because no one was working in the factory when the blast occured. Also they believe the fact that most people in the surrounding neighborhood were laying down in bed at the time of the blast helped to protect them from the flying debris

[@BogdanSerban]

So they left a tank full of flammable chemicals to boil AND LEFT? And no automatic safety systems? Geez, I was expecting that to happen in a 3rd world country, not in the USA.

[@jonmeray713]

Bogdan Serban hey! He was pretty sure he turned it off!

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

That's what you get when a plant has been around long enough and has never been forced to modernize, "Oh, it's always been like that". That's why the real failure here is that such an obviously deficient plant was allowed to operate and annually renew their license. Blaming the operator is really cheap, he's just doing his job like he's told to and made a mistake, which is something humans do. All the fucking time. One person forgetting to close a value should never result in a plant blowing up.

[@LeoLeo-qo7yw]

USA is a third world country.

[@231mac]

Oh, you wanna complain about the fan noise? Let see if you like this noise better...

[@bobbygolding2859]

231mac LMAOOOO

[@Crimsonedge1]

That narrators voice though... "When subjected to an electrical current, the rare material dubbed Element Zero, or Eezo, emits an energy field that raises or lowers the mass of all objects within it. This 'Mass Effect' is used in countless ways from generating artificial gravity to manufacturing high strength construction materials. It is most prominently used to enable faster than light space travel. Eezo is created when solid matter such as a planet is effected by the energy of a star going supernova. Humanity discovered refined Element Zero at the Prothean research station on Mars allowing them to create mass effect fields and develop FTL travel". Its not actually the same dude I don't think but still, pretty much every single USCSB video I've seen has this guy narrating and it and I keep hearing the dude from the Mass Effect codex entries.

[@ethanpoole3443]

That had not occurred to me until I just read your comment, but imagining this narrator voicing those exact words and it does indeed remind me of the Mass Effect Codex narration!

[@jeanlucdiscard]

They forgot to calibrate those paint tanks

[@douro20]

I worked for about a week at a wire loom assembly plant where there was a pot of molten lead left operating near the vent of the dryer on an operating air compressor. When this dryer vented it sprayed flammable oil in to the air. They insisted on leaving the pot plugged in and the air compressor running around the clock while the building was unoccupied over the weekend. It is a marvel the building didn't burn down.

[@bryandepaepe5984]

The one issue not addressed was that the ventilation system was being shut off due to neighbor complaints which if had been running would have avoided the explosion.

[@ssbohio]

Not necessarily. It would've controlled the flammable vapors for a time, but as the liquid boiled off, the remainder would get hotter and hotter, until a fire or explosion started inside the tank.

[@karriemendez8838]

I'm stunned that the city council or county commissioners were not held accountable for piss poor planning. Why would you ever build homes that close to an industrial manufacturing plant?

[@screamcollector]

the factory was built in the 1940s and was assumably much smaller and less of a hazard when it opened, the problem was how easily the factory was able to get approval for the storage of more and more hazardous material

[@jakemcnellis3601]

Tax revenue

[@stfudance5850]

I can walk to work hun and come home for lunch. I think buying this house is a great idea!

[@ZLR27]

i live in danvers and i slept through that even though the whole entire county was shaken

[@youtubeisbroken241]

It’s amazing what people can sleep through. I slept through contractors cutting into my apartment wall. They went to the wrong building and cut a roughly six ft by six ft hole in my wall. I never so much as rolled over.

[@Misha-dr9rh]

@@youtubeisbroken241 Imagine fucking waking up to a massive hole in your wall.

[@robertbenoit5374]

Unfortunate that Human error could cause such a devastating explosion. However, it is absolutely amazing that nobody was killed.

[@eastcoastitalian8758]

Im addicted to these CSB vids, ao much to learn, so many times profit is put before lives of human beings, basically alot of the same along all these tragic occurences

[@andrewharris2911]

This guy should narrate the disaster that is my family's reunions.

[@IARRCSim]

or attend work-related funerals to explain in cold detail how and why their family members died and the mistakes people made leading to the death.

[@marcuslaffey1637]

Looking at both the footage of the incident and the CGI reconstruction of the event, it is truly shocking. It is a miracle that no one lost their lives or sustained life-altering injuries

[@keyboard_toucher]

12:27 FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS OF FLAMMABLE SALADS

[@echothehusky]

I missed that!

[@williamhalter6546]

Gotta watch out for them flammable salads

[@ishouldgetalif3]

*too much* the CSB has concluded all dressing's no matter the amount should allways be kept out of direct contact of sallads before ingestion.

[@SweetMoonSugar]

thats why you gatta chew the salad first then drink the dressing to mix it all in

[@TauCu]

*Solids

[@s0nnyburnett]

Total manual control for a heating system on a big container of flammable liquids in 2006. A high school student from decades earlier could have predicted that was a bad idea.

[@moalboris239]

The ideal honestly is to have both. An automated system but with ways for humans to double check to make sure there hasn't been an error and giving them a way to take over if they need. Along with making sure the people that can override actually know what doing so means.

[@gabiold]

@@moalboris239 The problem always starts when human responsibility is required. Fully redundant automation never fails this bad IF designed properly. Does not forget, do not sleep and always there. When the redundancy degrades the system still works and alarms you. But someone should be prepared and repair the failed side. And if human manager decide no to, or delay it, then we are at human error and responsibility, cost shavings, negligence again. The system were safe until human needed to participate... This is the case 99% of time...

[@kyrvanmuna]

now ask those residents was that fan noise actually so bad. factory was there first.

[@jessvagnar4957]

+kyrvanmuna Now ask the company, why did you solely rely on one dude turning a knob every night for years?

[@hexane360]

Of course, the factory should've put their foot down on it. The residents didn't know the fan was preventing an explosion. The factory should have.

[@motherlove202]

Nobody told them to build a town around the factory

[@jessvagnar4957]

Someone wrote the comment - No one told them to build a town around the factory. This is the issue with "Republicanism". You are a scourge, and people associate these asinine comments with anti-regulation beliefs and then say we are in effect responsible and directly at fault for these deaths. No one told you to be in America, no one told you to comment on this youtube page, no one told you to keep breathing. Your comment can be applied to everything, no one told you to go to the store where you were shot, no one told you to buy a car when you got hit by a drunk driver. Factories are near towns, whichever came first both should be equally safe to be located near, there are some processes which are inherently hazardous and there are laws about the locations of such facilities. In the end this tripe-ridden crap is meaningless and doesn't support any ideological concept beyond victim blaming in a situation where the victim had no possible way to foresee the consequences. I mean, the people are the Boston Bombing were kinda dumb for standing there, eh?

[@samueljames9342]

Fan noise can easily be mitigated, at a cost of course. This was caused by ignorance and greed.

[@bulbajer]

It's weird, I've been scrolling through these videos of all these awful industrial accidents, and then seeing my hometown featured in one of the videos... My best friend lived in that neighborhood. Their family spent Thanksgiving at our place due to the damage.

[@fordguy8792]

Yeah, buying a home directly adjacent to a facility holding tons of explosive chemicals has its benefits!

[@OAleathaO]

Of course the officials responsible for approving the increases in storage capacity at the site probably didn't live anywhere near the place.

[@MsJinkerson]

never leave a chemical plant operating unattended

[@thefloridamanofytcomments5264]

Tragically, several families were forced to relocate to Lynn.

[@JamesBond-uz2dm]

Lynn, Lynn city of sin You never go out The way you came in

[@TaintedMojo]

Well it’s a good thing the local nimbys moved next to a factory and started bitching about the ventilation fans. I see it worked out well for them.

[@e-agjohn8176]

And folks that is called victim blaming.

[@NicholasLittlejohn]

Should have shut that toxic crap down.

[@TaintedMojo]

E-AG John no it’s called cause and effect.

[@tashalynn29]

@@TaintedMojo yea

[@conoba]

How come there was not even a simple thermostate on that tank? What kind of stoneage technology is that?

[@pvtimberfaller]

They fail, duh.

[@sburbStuck]

1944. it was built in 1944. so theres your date lol.

[@Tindometari]

Thermostats are too unreliable for this kind of application. One night the thermostat goes wonky, with the same result. A procedure including a manual shutoff is then better because it provides a routine positive check rather than simply trusting the thermostat to keep working properly.

[@Mic_Glow]

@@Tindometari One problem with that- force people to do a "routine check" too often and soon you will have that check done only on paper. Same with alarms going off for no reason- people shut them off or ignore. Proper way to do it would be a 2-step system with thermocouples, automatic shutdown if one of the sensors fails or they disagree, physical failsafe- flare (to burn the pressurized vapor safely outside. And then you can have a regular thermometer on the tank and routine (monthly, idk) inspections.

[@menthol-bonbon1726]

@@Tindometari I mean even if they had a thermostate there had to be a manual valve that has to be checked before the facility closes.

[@konyeu11]

i watched many of these CSB videos in my process safety course at purdue. very insightful

[@AyaJuni]

I don't blame the guy who forgot to close the velve. There should never be one person responsible for a dangerous production step which he/ she has to actively control. There also should have been an automatic emergency shutdown or velve closure when temprathres exceed recomeded temperatures. As well as an ovetall shutdown when shifts end.

[@ratheonhudson3311]

The thing is that a shockwave and the radiant heat are something you can't see, especially at night. What a terrifying situation for a sleepy neighborhood to experience.

[@em1osmurf]

i worked as a NAVOSH inspector. the outright intentional ignoring of safety regulations is a lot more common than is realized. frighteningly common--even in the military.

[@ThePzrLdr]

This case was highlighted in my level 3 Hazwoper training.

[@BigBossIsBack]

This animations never disappoint

[@enderteller]

“Wow it’s really windy in this room” is now my new favorite sentence.

[@samuelrosen137]

This is why we have automated controls on modern plants to prevent things like this. 1 battery backed PLC with a backup timer and a valve is all it would take.

[@gabiold]

That would have prevented this particular accident, but still not have guaranteed that it will never happen, just delayed it until that single valve fails. Or the cable to the valve. Or the backup timer. Because the backup never participate in the process until the primary fails, it might be gone faulty unnoticed, years before. All process at this scale would required to have fully redundant control, redundant actuators, cables, sensors, power, and everything, with self-diagnostics that checks the redundancy is still exists. If the diagnostics recognize a fault, it should at least raise an alarm. But that still need a person to respond and a code what to do. Which would be probably ignored with "okay, one system still works, we repair the secondary when we will have time" (...5-10 years later). So the better option would be to trigger an alarm AND automatically actuating other failsafes. For example switching the exhaust fans to full power. Signal the steam plant to switch off steam supply there, probably there is not just one single valve in the whole facility. Considering the damage of any kind of an explosion, even a much smaller one, when just that building or process gets destroyed, including the profit loss, is still magnitudes more expensive than any industrial automation that would have prevented that. These weren't possible a century ago, but today... Since at least 40-50 years the electronics, software, automation are available. It should be mandatory by law to have these implemented AND inspected regularly by an idependent party that has the knowledge for that kind of process, chemicals, etc...

[@sultanalmahdaly837]

I would like to thank CSB for such an illustration. Hopefully, the out comes of the incident wont repeat itself somewhere else

[@joes3989]

CSB narration is as good as Campbell Lane, excellent work.

[@LeeryMuscrat]

On a lot of these videos I feel very angry about these big dangerous processes being so close to residential areas But on this one, I get the feeling that the people near by were partly to blame for putting their houses right next to an industrial area and then COMPLAINING about the noise... Like, what do you think would happen? Those vent fans running would have prevented this if they were allowed to run them.

[@Kohdok]

At least nobody paid for this with their lives.

[@richardharden]

The thing with the clock is amazing

[@toryknotts8026]

There should be a regulation that residential houses should not be within a certain radius of plants like this.

[@NicholasLittlejohn]

And chemical plants should stfu

[@jordanrodrigues1279]

A lot of comments like this ignore the fact that the flammable liquids permit changed after the neighborhood grew up, and there were no inspections or official reviews that could have noticed that they now had a hazardous industrial use right next to homes. There was no way for residents to know, and we can't expect people to be experts about what kinds of industry are safe to live next to and what kinds need a larger buffer. Expecting people to be responsible for that is how you end up with nimbyism - they hear "factory" and panic. Even though there are lot of factories that would be a positive part of a mixed community. There's a big difference between, say, a glassworks or brewery, and something that involves heating giant vats of hexane.

[@carolinehoward180]

Just when you thought fan noise was your biggest problem…. BOOOOOOM 💣 🔥

[@SuperAgentman007]

15:55 oh yeah residents would love having 10,000 gallons of flammable liquid right next-door!

[@SuperAgentman007]

@Joe Bauers that was auto spell fault sorry for that ;-)

[@NicholasLittlejohn]

It's usually kept secret too.

[@IARRCSim]

Yeah. I guess it is extra pressure for the company to minimize use of flammable materials when they get yelled at for trying to add more. It is extra transparency and increases awareness of the risks which is nice too. Getting the comments from residents doesn't mean the residents can fully stop the company from getting what it wants but the other benefits seem good.

[@brodusbrangler818]

Wow that was a miracle..by the look of the damage.

[@gilby123]

My brother was working overnight at a Target about a mile or two away. Even that far, the blast shook the building, knocking things off shelves and signs/tiles out of the ceiling. I remember seeing a sign that had stood near this facility for decades was bent like someone hit it with a semi due to the blast wave.

[@wmd40]

Great video. If I ever buy a house or move I am definitely not going to live anywhere near a plant haha. It's so scary that such a huge danger can been created by such a simple mistake. How many times have we all accidentally left something on? It's scary that there's not regulation requiring alarms for mechanisms like that.

[@mikewolfe386]

Made me jump out of bed in salem. I walked the neighborhood to see what happened. Sounded like it happened right there.

[@holretz1]

A very obvious improvement would be to make a storage facility separated from production. This is the most common approach. The storage facility and production could be enclosed with earth-mounts to prevent shock-waves and debris hitting the surroundings. That's a very cheap passive safeguard. Of course there should also be some kind of automatic valve-closing to prevent overheating.

[@patplaysguitar]

I live in Danvers and I was about 16 at the time. I stayed up playing video games until exactly 2:30 when I passed out immediately and slept through this explosion. Apparently it was heard in parts of Maine, yet there I was... sound asleep less than a mile away.

[@ernestbywater411]

I wonder if this explosion would have happened if the exhaust fans had not been turned off due to the noise complaints by the neighbors who built and moved in after the plant was in operation. It's likely the explosion may have happened anyway, but if the exhaust fans had been operational the amount of gases would have been greatly reduced, thus the explosion would have been a small fraction of the one that occurred.

[@janebarnhardt3503]

How was the town allowed to build up around a commercial chemical plant to begin with and was this addressed?

[@Serostern]

@conoba Nobody thinks about that kinda stuff until AFTER the shit hit the fan.

[@homefront3162]

Seroster Lol, the shit fans were off... ha

[@y2jtopgun]

When the residents wanted the fans removed, they didn’t mean for the company to take it literally!!

[@hotrodmercury3941]

Karens moving next to a industrial site: "TURN OFF YOUR SAFETY SYSTEMS ITS KEEPING ME AWAKE"

[@smallmoneysalvia]

Totally forgot about this. I look forward to any investigation into the recent low pressure propane ruptures and subsequent explosions in MA from the NTSB, does the USCSB have any authority in this?

[@LoPhatKao]

2:15 ".. caused the most community damage that the CSB has investigated to date" West, Texas: _Hold my beer_

[@vanguard2688]

It's crazy there were no deaths in this accident!!

[@arthureverett8220]

A blast from the past!!!

[@laurelviolet]

Sheldon Smith (the narrator) is in my top 3 narrators with Stacy Keach (American Greed) and Keith Morrison (Dateline).

[@gbear1005]

Cases like this serve as excellent examples of why comprehensive checklists - derived from FMEA analysis - need to exist for even the most mundane tasks. Forget one step, and boom.

[@alancomercomer2588]

I used to live a quarter mile from there. I work with flammables all the time heptane is extremely flammable. There should have been a hatch that can be sealed and a pressure disc that would burst to relieve the pressure but most importantly the ventilation should have not been turned off.

[@Tadesan]

I worked at CL Hauthaway in Lynn MA. A reactor there caught fire and burned Myron. Much love y’all.

[@whiteclifffl]

This video was a blast!

[@MajorT0m]

0:50 its Anton Chigur from No Country for Old Men. I'm glad he's settled down.

[@-GrimEngineer-1337]

Zero failsafes...

[@Merrillizer]

I was up late after a party that morning and heard the explosion from NH. It was LOUD, and I originally thought it was a neighbor on the next street over starting his diesel tow truck. Wow!

[@fungusenthusiast8249]

that one clock stopped at 2:46 A.M. makes it so much more eerie...

[@HobbyOrganist]

And today while the chemical plant is gone, right diagonally across the road from where it was there's a big propane gas business with loads of huge tanks full of propane, that's the NEXT "ground zero" when some idiot screws up! You couldn't PAY me to live there.

[@toryknotts8026]

I always get nervous when passing those places, strangely enough I'm not afraid of the trucks hauling all manner of bottles while on the road. It's dumb I know but still.....

[@GoalWalker]

I'm curious as to if the valve was located in the rubble, whether the valve was actually open apart from assumptions, whether the valve could have been slightly open due to a foreign object, or wear and tear?

[@abbysmommy220]

It wasn't at 2:46 when the explosion happened. I was up and getting ready for work in Beverly before 2 ( I had to be at work at 2am) when it happened. The shockwave was a little scary.

[@Jimothy156]

Does the full length walk-through of the Lettich's home exist anywhere online?

[@beansmalone1305]

was the explosion louder than the fans that would have prevented it?

[@SWIFTO_SCYTHE]

IS THAT A NEIGHBORHOOD NEXT TO A CHEMICAL PLANT??? MR MARCOU IS LUCKY TO LIVE.

[@phorzer32]

Forgotten to turn the heat off... This is like my kitchen-accidents :D

[@WadcaWymiaru]

Why tank had no rupture pipe if that was a pression devide? And no overflow with dump tank?