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On May 4th, 1988, a loud explosion rocked the entire Southern Nevada Valley.\u00a0 The ground rumbled, windows shook and, in many places, shattered completely.\u00a0 Residents at first thought it was an earthquake.\u00a0 Others who saw a mushroom cloud rising over\u00a0\u00a0Henderson\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/a>thought a nuclear nightmare might be unfolding in the industrial city.<\/p>\n In reality, it was an industrial disaster that occurred\u00a0 at the\u00a0Pacific Engineering Production Company of Nevada<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0which was commonly referred to as\u00a0PEPCON<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 The plant, located in Henderson, was one of two American producers of ammonium perchlorate which is an oxidizer in solid rocket fuel boosters for the\u00a0Space Shuttle<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and the military’s\u00a0Titan Missile \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/a>program.<\/p>\n The other American manufacturer,\u00a0Kerr-McGee<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, was located less than five miles away from the PEPCON plant and well with-in the area that suffered blast damage.<\/p>\n A little background information:\u00a0 After the\u00a0Challenger Space Shuttle<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0disaster in January, 1986, the United States government continued their contract with PEPCON for\u00a0ammonium perchlorate<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Despite the freeze on the\u00a0Space Program<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, the company continued to manufacture the product at the same rate as before the Shuttle disaster.\u00a0 Since there was no delivery of the product going on due to the freeze and no guidance from the government as to where to ship it to, the company stored the compound on site in plastic drums. These drums were housed on the parking lots around the plant.\u00a0 The\u00a0Las Vegas Review Journal<\/em><\/strong><\/a>reported in the aftermath that “nearly 9 million<\/strong>\u00a0(yeah, you read that right)\u00a0pounds<\/strong>\u00a0of the chemical was consumed by the flames or explosions.”<\/p>\n According to\u00a0Wikipedia<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0a fire started by “a cigarette that had been discarded into a barrel of scrap ammonium perchlorate.”\u00a0 Nearby, workers were repairing a steel frame with fiberglass walls that had suffered damage in a recent windstorm.\u00a0 They were using a welding torch.\u00a0 The fire spread quickly once it reached the fiberglass material.\u00a0 This led, according to the\u00a0Las Vegas Mercury<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0account by Gregory Crosby, to the first small explosion:<\/p>\n This small explosion raised the alarm “that enabled most workers to escape before a second larger explosion occurred on the heels of the first.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Company comptroller Roy Westerfield “was on the phone reporting the emergency, explaining the urgency of the situation, “We’ve had an explosion and everything’s on fire” he told a dispatcher.\u00a0 (Las Vegas Review Journal)<\/p>\n The\u00a0Henderson Fire Department<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0responded to the fire.\u00a0 When the Fire Chief arrived he saw a massive white and orange fireball and dozens of people running across the desert towards him.\u00a0 The second explosion happened at 11:54 and the shock wave shattered the windows in the Chief’s car.\u00a0 A heavily damaged vehicle approached and its driver advised the chief that the danger was growing.\u00a0 The Chief turned around and headed towards safety.<\/p>\n Inside the plant, Roy Westerfield was still trying to herd people to safety.\u00a0 He was talking by phone to a dispatcher when\u00a0 few seconds later he said “Get ’em all out of here”.\u00a0 These were quite possibly his last words.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was the third massive explosion that sent Henderson and Las Vegas residents running for their windows, radios and television news.\u00a0\u00a0 Local\u00a0Channel 3<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0anchor Gwen Castaldi went on the air and began letting Valley residents know what was happening.\u00a0 “It was a real moment of urgency and tragedy in the community.” (Personal interview with Castaldi, 2005).<\/p>\n It was the third blast, according to Gregory Crosby, “that sealed the plant’s fate when that 9 million pounds of chemical literally went up in smoke.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The blast was so forceful that it knocked an arriving fire engine over two lanes.\u00a0 Another arriving fire truck had its windows shattered.\u00a0 Cars were overturned.\u00a0 The explosion created a visible shock wave.\u00a0 This explosion almost destroyed the Fire Chief’s car but he was able to drive to a nearby hospital to seek treatment for his passenger and himself.<\/p>\n Inside the plant, Roy Westerfield and Bruce Halker, two employees who were shepherding people out of danger were killed.\u00a0\u00a0 More than 300 people were injured.<\/p>\n The marshmallow factory next door, Kidd and Co., suffered the brunt of the explosion.\u00a0 Due to faulty equipment there were fewer employees working that day.\u00a0 Those employees who were there evacuated at the first sign of trouble.\u00a0 The marshmallow factory was destroyed.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The final explosion went off and PEPCON basically disappeared.\u00a0 Boulder Highway looked like a war zone.\u00a0 There was glass everywhere..” Eyewitness\u00a0 and PEPCON employee Joe Hedrick.<\/p>\n The last explosion registered 3.5 on the\u00a0Richter scale<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by the\u00a0National Earthquake Information Center<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0600 miles away in Colorado.\u00a0 A crater estimated at 15 feet deep and 200 feet wide was left in the storage area.\u00a0<\/p>\n A 747 on approach to\u00a0McCarran Airport<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0was reportedly buffeted by the shock wave.\u00a0 The Airport, 11 miles away from the blast, suffered cracked windows.\u00a0 An analysis later estimated the blast damage the equivalent of 250 tons of TNT.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nearby\u00a0Basic High School<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0suffered serious damage and damage was reported at\u00a0McDoniel Elementary<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Burkholder Middle School<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Southern Nevada Vocational-Technical Center<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 The last blast blew out the windows at Basic High School.<\/p>\n “We thought someone was out there with a shotgun” remembered teacher Michael Neighbors, “Like fools, we went right for the windows.\u00a0 We literally pushed the kids out of the building.\u00a0 It was like an air pocket.\u00a0 The back of my hair parted.” (Las Vegas Review Journal).\u00a0<\/p>\n The large plume of smoke could be seen around the valley and residents throughout the valley worried about chemical fall-out. \u00a0 Luckily, the wind that day was only 20 to 25 mph and kept much of the chemical from settling in the valley.\u00a0 Local health officials predicted that lives were saved because of the winds.<\/p>\n Damage was estimated at $74 million dollars.\u00a0 The nearby Fire Station was heavily damaged and there was structural damage to a nearby warehouse.<\/p>\n PEPCON, renamed Western Electrochemical Company, relocated to Iron County, Utah.\u00a0 Now some 14 miles northwest of St. George, they began the relocation a mere three months after the devastating explosion at the Henderson plant.\u00a0 Kerr-McGee moved their plant 17 miles northeast of Las Vegas to Apex.\u00a0\u00a0 For awhile Kerr-McGee continued to manufacture the more stable liquid form of the chemical on site.\u00a0 But in 1998, ten years after the disaster, the parent company of PEPCON\/Western Electrochemical Company bought out the remaining ammonium perchlorate contracts and moved all production to Utah.<\/p>\n Senior Company official, Fred Gibson, Jr tried to shift blame from PEPCON to Southwest Gas by saying that a ruptured gas line caused the fire.\u00a0 However, this conflicted with eyewitness testimony by employees.\u00a0 PEPCON attorney told the Las Vegas Review Journal, three days after the disaster, “Nothing ignites ammonium perchlorate.\u00a0 It does not burn.\u00a0 It is not flammable.”\u00a0 Chemists from around the world immediately disputed the attorney and called the product “unstable and highly flammable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n After the explosion it came out that the facility had been cited numerous times since 1974 for safety violations.\u00a0 There had been a small explosion in 1980 that had injured a worker.\u00a0<\/p>\n More than 50 law firms represented dozens of insurance companies and corporations in lawsuits.\u00a0 The case ran up tens of millions of dollars in attorneys fees and produced 1 million pages of depositions.<\/p>\n The case wound its way through the judicial system from 1989 to 1992 when a $171 million settlement was reached before going to a jury trial.\u00a0 Insurance companies that had reimbursed some 17,000 claimants received almost 100 cents on the dollar.<\/p>\n Clark County agreed to pay $3.8 million to insurance companies as a result of shoddy inspections that had taken place at the plant over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n Southwest Gas also agreed to settle because according to their attorney “it was a practical decision made because of the uncertainty of what a jury might do at trial.” (Las Vegas Review Journal).<\/p>\n Southwest Gas later found out what a jury would do.\u00a0 In a trial that lasted a little over a month, PEPCON’s insurance company argued that gas, which is lighter than air, had leaked from a pipe then\u00a0moved horizontally underground<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0toward the plant 670 feet away.\u00a0 The gas was then to make\u00a0a 90-degree turn upward<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and ignited with an unknown source. (Emphasis added)<\/p>\n Following final arguments, the attorneys hadn’t even gotten back to their offices before the call came from the court house that a jury had reached a verdict.\u00a0 It took less than a half hour for the jury to laugh that idea out of court.<\/p>\n The disaster was a turning point for the development of Henderson.\u00a0 The city began to shift from being the “City of Industry” (its slogan) to a bedroom community of Las Vegas.\u00a0 A few years after the disaster, Green Valley subdivision, a master planned community, took off with home buyers and changed the dynamics of Henderson forever.<\/p>\n Though many industries remain in Henderson, the city is now a growing hub of suburban dwellers looking to escape Las Vegas.<\/p>\n \u00a0Image courtesy of the Las Vegas Review Journal<\/p>\n<\/div>\n