Whiting refinery explosion seemed like 'end of the world'
A great wall of fire rose over the Midwest's largest refinery, darkening the dawn sky with thick, billowing plumes of black smoke 60 years ago, on
"I thought the sun had exploded and that this was the end of the world," a witness told The
Shrapnel laid waste to the
A 180-ton chunk of steel crushed a neighborhood grocery store. Cars were flipped onto their roofs. A wooden plank was hurled with such force it pierced a brick wall.
Train cars melted in the incandescent heat. Smoke towered more than a mile high and could be seen 60 miles away. Railroad tracks were warped to where they looked like limp strands of spaghetti.
Every window was broken out within a three-mile radius.
"The man of the house got up to go investigate, since it happened around
Hmurovic and several other
The free premiere screening of the documentary will take place at
A rumor going around town at the time was National Guardsmen were shooting oil tanks to relieve the pressure so they wouldn't explode, Vargo said. The inferno raged on for eight days and caused extensive damage to the refinery, burning up millions of gallons of oil, though Standard Oil still managed to ultimately have one of the most profitable years in its history.
Unlike previous explosions and fires at the refinery, which first opened on the
Standard Oil's insurance covered much of the losses, and an exact dollar figure for the destruction was never made public, Hmurovic said. But it was unquestionably the worst industrial accident in one of the most heavily industrialized areas in the world. It was like the
"It was like
Miraculously, only two people died: the boy who was killed by shrapnel and a Standard Oil foreman who died of a heart attack just a week before retirement when he went to battle the blaze. The toll could have been much, much worse, but the industrial fire showed a catastrophe could happen at any time, Hmurovic said.
The explosion continues to reverberate in
He was 7 years old at the time, and when his father heard about the disaster on the radio he took him out onto the side porch to see. He remembers watching a tower of black smoke loom over the lakeshore at least 10 miles away.
"At the time there were no houses and no trees, and we could see for miles," Belinski said. "He showed me this big black funnel of smoke. I thought it was a tornado, but he told me, 'No, it's the
His father,
"I asked him why he stayed with his truck when other truck drivers left, and he said people needed his help,"
"It's not just
A 26-story hydroformer -- believed to be the biggest in the world at the time -- erupted at around
"They felt it in
A janitor from WJOB in
Help poured in from everywhere, including from the Cubs announcer
"It never happened," Hmurovic said. "But many people feared the oil would leak into the sewer system and the sewer would catch fire and explode, that manholes would fly up into the air."
Some reported seeing utility poles around town that caught fire.
The explosion ultimately damaged around 200 houses, displacing some 700 residents.
BP, which has since bought the sprawling refinery, has continued to buy up property within a potential blast radius, demolishing homes in the historic Marktown neighborhood in nearby
"The neighborhood would not have been inhabitable after the fire," Hmurovic said. "It was a tremendous explosion."
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