missed events

In my haste to create a post for this site yesterday I made a grievous error in not marking a couple anniversaries:

The Port Chicago Explosion of ships carrying approximately 4606 tons of Ammonium Nitrate that killed 322 people. You can read more on this incident here and here and here and here

A collapse of a pair of walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel that resulted in the deaths of 114 people during a ‘tea dance’ in 1981. A detailed report on this incident can be found here, here, here, and here. As hard to accept as it is, this incident is helping to protecting people in the future and help to build better structures down the road. Various engineering schools are studying the results of the investigations to learn from past mistakes.

And today is the 5th anniversary of the 60 car train derailment on July 18 2001 in the Harvard Street tunnel in Blatimore Maryland. This crash caught fire and burned so hot that firefighters were unable to get to the fire for 8 hours. The NTSB has a report here that covers the investigation. More can be viewed here. During the incident streets were closed, traffic rerouted, and the baseball game at Camden Yards was cancelled. Baltimore FD responded in force and with their HazMat Team did a great job containing and extinguishing the blaze, damage totals are estimated at $12 million.