Ignored Warnings: Explosion in St. Louis
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- čas přidán 6. 12. 2022
- A CSB safety video about the fatal explosion that occurred on April 3, 2017, at the Loy-Lange Box Company in St Louis, Missouri. The incident occurred when a severely corroded pressure vessel catastrophically failed, causing an explosion that launched the pressure vessel into a neighboring building. One worker and three members of the public were fatally injured.
Life long St Louis resident here. This video is great but I believe it is worth mentioning that of the 4 people killed in this incident - one was the operator at the box company, and the other 3 were employees of the company across the street who had all just started their very first day of work there. 2 of them were a husband and wife who had just recently married. Such a tragic and preventable incident.
I swear, the USCSB puts out some of the best and most important videos on CZcams. They are meticulously detailed, filled with interesting commentary, and absolutely compelling to watch. Thank you for making this content.
As a retired boiler and pressure vessel inspector, it just makes me weep that proper maintenance, repairs and inspection isn’t done. These things can and do rupture.
Can you imagine saying goodbye to a family member as they go off to work at a non dangerous job and then later that day having a police officer tell you that they died from injuries sustained by being struck by equipment being flung by an explosion a block away. Can you imagine the shock of witnessing such a horrific event. Those poor people.
The words "leaking pressure vessel" should, in and of themselves, be enough to strike terror in the hearts of anyone who hears them.
So unfortunate. The company cut corners to save time. Not only was there a mistake allowing corrosion in the tank, but they never properly repaired corrosion nor did they change start up sequences to prevent it from happening again. People are dead for no reason. Thanks CSB, your work is imperative to keep our work places safe.
This accident resulted in a 47 million dollar settlement for personal injury and wrongful death suits.
literally replacing a pressure tank could've saved 4 lives and millions of dollars. I hope the responsible people feel stupid for trying to save a few bucks at the risk of lives. this should literally result in jailtime for gross neglect.
So the company simply ignored the leaks and went on to start it up business as usual the next shift? Someone needs to go to prison for manslaughter over this.
Thank you for the hard work you do to keep industry accountable and the public informed.
As a boiler operator, this video hit especially close to home for me. Four people died because people (management) cut corners. This highlights to me why statewide pressure vessel regulatory bodies are so important.
Two videos in as many months? The USCSB has been busy! Thank you for the work you do, especially public outreach and materials like these. These kinds of breakdowns help with process-oriented thinking, necessary redundancies, failsafe measures, capacity planning and tolerances, and much more. Much of it doesn’t directly translate to software design, but all of it is a source of wisdom that I get to draw on for my work because of the effort your team puts in. Thank you!!
As a retired reliability engineer, I can say that the number of companies ignoring safety warnings is considerable. Usually sorting the issue is very simple and certainly much cheaper than the failures that occur. The Deep Water Horizon disaster was predicted, and even the kitchen staff were expecting an explosion sooner or later. Lots of the on board staff made out wills prior to the disaster it was that well known to be a risk.
I retired about a year ago and closed my machine shop. I always tried to make sure there were no hazards that I didn't recognize and deal with properly. But there are many things that a person doesn't even realize as being hazardous and folks rely on regulations and inspections to help us make sure we don't hurt or kill people. Pressure vessels are particularly problematic because they are quiet, don't move around, and so don't attract attention. But boy do they have lots of potential to cause great harm. Thank You so much for posting the many very informative videos.
I like that the CSB chooses to highlight some of these smaller scale incidents, not just the massive industrial park examples, to show that tragedy can happen anywhere safety isn't a priority.
As I've gotten older, I've noticed that preventative maintenance has gradually been made less of a priority. To the point that it's ignored till it breaks, and they just buy a new item. The Army taught me the value of Preventative maintenance and that lesson has served me well over the years.
I like how these are both "how it's made" with the context info, and "how it's not made," when it goes wrong. I often wonder what the manufacturing processes are around the stuff covered and these videos are great.
Always a duality when USCSB uploads. Love the animations and explanations that are both detailed and easy enough for the layman. Anger at the failure of protocol and lives lost. Thank you for these videos!
As a government agency whose power is limited to writing a strongly worded letter to recommend change, I’m glad to see them take full advantage of social media.
I rarely stray from the usual content creators I watch, but every time I see USCSB, I know it's going to be a good video. Please never stop making these