Tornado Area Sends Aid

It was the second major disaster in Texas within a week. A tornado swept the Panhandle and north-western Oklahoma Wednesday, killing 132 persons in the two states. Relief workers still stationed in the tornado area rushed to the scene of the new calamity, hundreds of miles to the south.

The huge plant of the Monsanto Chemical Company was built in wartime at a cost of $19,000,000 to make styrene, an ingredient of synthetic rubber.

Fires still were raging in the Monsanto plant and fire fighters would hear the screams of some workers trapped inside. Rescue was impossible because of the heat and flames.

Fire fighters wore gas masks, fearing further explosions. Company officials said there were stocks of explosive chemicals in the buildings.

A reporter for the Houston Chronicle who flew over Texas City for an hour after the initial blast said there was a fire on the waterfront, another along the Santa Fe Railroad and a third in a gasoline refinery area. He said there were no fires in the city's business or residential areas.

The reporter gave this picture:

"Fire Trucks were racing up from the south, presumably Galveston.

"The ship which is said to have started the fire could not be seen from Ellington Field, approximately thirty miles sway. It reached 4,000 feet.

"One oil tank, about a thousand feet away from the blaze, was crumpled like a piece of tinfoil.

"Buildings along the Santa Fe Railroad tracks had had the ends blown out. The sides were intact. Pieces of metal could be seen from the air lying at the foot of the building.

"An industrial section close to the bay was afire with the biggest blaze. Smoke was pouring from tanks and buildings.

"A refinery west of the tracks also was burning. Several oil tanks were blazing brightly. A few tanks were crumpled by the force of the blast.

"A heavy cloud of smoke hung over the scene, shot with flashes of flame from the fires that still raged along the waterfront."

Officials of the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation in Texas City said that there were no injuries to employees at the plant, which was undamaged by the explosion.

At New York the Coast Guard said it had reports from its Texas units that as many as 1,000 persons might be dead, and from 2,000 to 3,500 injured.

The National Guard was called out to help control the emergency.

The blasts were so severe that windows were shattered at Galverston, eleven miles across the bay, and plaster was knocked from ceilings there. Many persons there fled Galverston fearing an earthquake.

After the start of the chain of explosions flames raged unchecked because of damage to the water system.

Efforts to estimate the total of dead and injured were made difficult by the chaos and by disrupted communications. Although the telephone union ordered all strikers back on their jobs, lines were damaged and few were operating.

Residents were stunned and stumbled about the debris dazed. Many had burns or cuts from glass and steel and brick hurtled through the air.

The explosion was the worst in Texas history, exceeding even the New London school explosion in 1937 when in 294 school children were killed. It was the second worst disaster in Texas history, being exceeded only by that of the Galveston hurricane in 1900, when 5,000 to 8,0000 fled.

Gov. Beauford H. Jester flew to the area to help direct relief. Rescue workers poured into Texas City from Galveston, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and other cities.