SECONDS FROM DISASTER S03E10 TEXAS OIL EXPLOSION
It starts as a normal day at one of America's biggest oil refineries.
1800 people are busy at work.
Without warning, a massive explosion rocks the plant.
The blast is felt 8 kilometers away.
Dozens of people are injured.
15 are dead.
A desperate rescue operation gets under way.
America's worst industrial disaster for 15 years
shatters a close-knit community.
Now, a team of investigators must work out exactly what went wrong.
Human error? Design flaw? Or terrorist attack?
Disasters don't just happen.
They're a chain of critical events.
Unravel the clues and countdown those final
seconds from disaster.
SECONDS FROM DISASTER TEXAS OIL EXPLOSION SUBTITLE BY CHOCHANCUUDUC (HDVIETNAM)
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North America. Texas.
The Gulf of Mexico.
Every second, America burns nearly 4000 galleons of gasoline,
almost half the world's production.
Much of it passes through this complex of refineries,
the beating heart of the nation's gas-addicted economy.
On the frontline of this multi-billion-dollar industry,
56 kilometers Southeast of Houston, lies Texas City.
Here, 40000 people live, clustered around 3 giant refineries.
One of them belongs to the world's second-biggest oil company:
British Petroleum, or BP.
It provides jobs for 1800 workers
and sprawls over a massive five square kilometers.
Everyday, its process is up to 11 million gallons of gasoline.
This huge quantity of flammable liquid brings with it constant danger.
The oil industry has strict safety guidelines,
and with good reason.
Since the 1970s,
more than 100 oil workers have died in industrial accidents across America.
BP's Texas City refinery has a checkered safety record.
Workers have been killed here on at least 6 seperate occasions.
In September 2004, two workers were scalded to death.
The Occupational Health and Safety Authority found BP guilty of a willful violation of industry safety guidelines.
BP now claims to have put its house in order.
There is no hidden to the amount
of activity that we've undertaken in Texas City
to make it a very safe plant.
But since 9/11, there's a new threat.
Growing demand for gasoline has left America with little spare capacity.
An attack here could cripple the world's biggest economy.
As a result, the FBI
now regards this group of refineries as one of the top 5 terrorist targets in the United States.
At 2 am, night shift operators at the BP refinery work on the distillation tower.
For the last month, the tower had been shutdown for routine maintenance.
This usually happens once every few years.
Now, its operators must start it up again.
The process can take up to 12 hours
and much of it has to be done manually.
ÒòThe risk of human error makes it one of the most dangerous jobs in every refinery.
The tower's function is to distill rough fuel into its heavier and lighter components.
ÒOn its way into the tower, the liquid is heated by a furnace,
and the lighter compotenents evaporate.
The vapor rises to the top of the tower
and it channels out, through a pipe.
It then passes through a condenser and returns to liquid before being pumped away.
ÌThis will be added to gasoline to make it more potent.
Meanwhile, the heavier residue left at the bottom of the tower is siphoned off.
This will be used to make products, such as tar.
If the distillation process creates too much vapor,
operators can lower the pressure by venting excess gases.
These eventually reaches safety outlet, or blowdown stack.
An hour later, an alarm goes off in the control room.
The liquid in the tower is above the recommended level.
Against safety guidelines, the operator kills the alarm
and continues filling the tower for another 15 minutes.
It's an unofficial but routine shortcut,
which has been taken many times before.
At 5 am, an hour before sunrise,
construction engineer David Crow arrives at work.
David's office is in a 20-meter trailer
within sight of the blowdown stack.
Though he's only worked for the BP refinery for the last 8 months,
David and his wife Georgeanne have become close friends with his fellow workers.
They were our buddies, there was no problems, uh,
¸that everybody got along.
Among David's friends are James and Linda Rowe.
By 10 minutes to 10, there's been a change of shift at the distillation tower.
The computer shows the liquid level has dropped to normal.
The supervisor now decides to move on to the next phase of the start-up process.
An operator starts to feed more fuel into the tower.
Minutes later,
the supervisor receives a phone call.
His son has broken his arms at school.
He hands over control to a colleague.
At 10 am, operators light burners on the tower's furnace.
This starts the distillation process
by heating the liquid feeding into the tower.
From this point on, most functions are automated.
The most risky part of the process is over.
12:40pm.
Everything seems to be going normally.
Then a high pressure alarm goes off.
Operators check the tower's level indicator and find nothing wrong.
They conclude that the distillation process must be producing too much vapor.
To slow it down, they turn off two of the burners on the furnace,
lowering the temperature of the feed into the tower.
They also vent excess gas into the safety outlet, or blowdown stack.
As expected, the pressure begins to fall.
Just before 1pm, workers relax within sight of the distillation tower.
ÒIt's been a week without accidents,
and to reward the work force for their safety records, BP's management buy them lunch.
As the workers enjoy their food,
a white pickup truck approaches the main processing units.
It's one of many trucks in the refinery,
and nobody pays it any attention.
Among the workers are Ralph Dean and his wife, Alisa.
Ralph has been employed here for 8 months, as a rigging supervisor.
Alisa is 32,
and works as an office manager in the nearby trailer.
Lunch is the one time they get to see each other.
I was having a great time, free lunch, free food.
Construction worker, yeah, was great.
As the workers finish their food,
David Crow rounds them up for a routine maintenance meeting.
Alisa joins them in the trailer.
As she does so, the white pickup truck parks near the blowdown stack.
The driver leaves the engine running
and slips away unseen.
Although they don't realize it, the workers are now in terrible danger.
And one of the world's biggest oil refineries is on the brink of catastrophe.
At the BP refinery in Texas City,
operators have been starting up a distillation tower for the last 11 hours.
The high-risk procedure seems to be going to plan.
But at nearly 20 past 1, workers become alarmed.
They spot a pool of liquid seeping under a white pickup truck.
They can't be sure what it is but the chances are: it's flammable.
Worse still, the pickup's engine is revving loudly,
and the driver is nowhere to be seen.
Workers run for cover, fearing the worst.
Nearby, Ralph Dean is operating a forklift.
His wife Alisa is in the trailer with 21 other workers,
including her friends David, Linda and James.
None of them hear the disturbance outside.
I've never heard a noise... that loud.
Extremely loud. It was biblical.
As far as Ralph can see, the refinery is a blaze.
The impact of the blast is felt 8 kilometers away.
Just outside Texas City, David Crow's wife Georgeanne is busy at work.
Within minutes of the explosion, local TV stations broadcast pictures of the burning refinery.
Georgeanne can't mistake her husband's work place.
Your heart is racing,
my stomach's starting feeling queasy,
I'm now... I'm thinking I wanted to scream.
It becomes clear this is a major disaster.
In a panic, Georgeanne phones her husband David.
There's no answer from his mobile phone, nor from the land line in the trailer.
The concern now that perhaps the fatality count, uh, unfortunately, could be going up.
Dazed by the explosion,
Ralph Dean suddenly realizes his wife would have felt the full impact of the blast.
But when he races to the trailer, he finds nothing left.
Alisa is nowhere to be seen.
I can't, for I call, feeling anything,
this single thought that I can remember the whole time was find her and get out.
David Crow was also in the trailer.
He's knocked unconscious by the blast
and now lies trapped beneath the debris.
He's seriously hurt.
ÒHe's fractured his foot, his heel is crushed,
and he's broken six vertebrae.
But if he doesn't move quickly, he'll burn to death.
As he regains consciousness, David tries desperately to free himself.
Despite his crippling injuries,
he drags himself clear of the immediate danger.
But he's still surrounded by flames.
As David looks for an escape route,
he sees Ralph searching for his wife Alisa.
Neither of the men can make sense of their surroundings.
There was nothing you could
recognize, nothing. Everything was just torn to bits.
It was, uh, probably outside the military, the worst thing you'll ever see.
It was hell on earth.
Meanwhile, Eva Rowe is on her way to visit her parents James and Linda.
She lives near Dallas,
a 4-hour driveway,
and doesn't see them as much as she would like.
It's just a few days to Easter,
and she's looking forward to spending the holiday with her family.
I was in a very good mood,
just traveling along and enjoying the day.
ÒEva has no idea about the explosion
or that her parents were caught in the blast.
Along with Ralph's wife Alisa
and Georgeanne's husband David,
not all of them will survive.
A lot of people were, uh, pretty sure they've got about
this, you can early feel the ground, and the land had shaken.
We felt it, and then we.. then all of a sudden, we saw it.
-It almost knocked me down... -...ike an earthquake.
200 firefighters descend on the refinery.
The scene to me looked like a nuclear explosion had gone off,
it just wiped everything out.
The things I saw that day...
that most people will never see in their lifetime
and hopefully, never will.
Emergency services have to act fast.
Millions of gallons of flammable materials are within meters of the fire.
David Crow lies crippled, choking on the lethal fumes.
Then, two colleagues stumble across him and drag him to safety.
How in the world did I get out of that?
Why am I me? Why I was that spared?
I believe we all have guardian angels.
And, uh, God was with me that day.
The paramedics were immediately worked on this scene to stabilize the most seriously-injured
and then prepare the patients for a immediate transport
into nearest hospitals by lifeflight or by ambulance.
Every available helicopter and dozens of ambulances
race the victims to hospital.
David Crow's wife Georgeanne learns that her husband is alive.
When she sees him, she's shocked by the state he's in.
He looked like he'd been tided by a car down the road.
I told him "I love you.
And I'm glad that I saw you here."
But not everyone is clear of the danger.
Ralph Dean continues the desperate search for his wife Alisa.
What I can think was just digging...
slight from digging... and might give anywhere.
Then, just as his efforts seem hopeless,
he sees debris he recognizes from his wife's office.
Beneath it, he finds a body.
It's Alisa, and she's still breathing.
She's unconscious, but alive.
A piece of heavy furniture has shielded her from the blast
and saved her life.
But James and Linda Rowe, who were also in the trailer, are still missing.
Their daughter Eva, now only 5 minutes from Texas City,
has no idea there has been an explosion.
There has been apparently a major explosion,
we understand of one of the witnesses who called us that it's at the BP refinery...
When she hears the news, she immediately calls her mother,
but gets no response.
I knew that something was wrong, because she always answered.
That time she didn't.
I wish she would have.
I wish she would have answered.
Back at the blast site,
it takes firefighters more than 2 hours to extinguish the blaze.
America's third-biggest refinery is left a smoldering wreck.
In total, 170 people are injured.
15 are dead.
11 died in the trailer.
But it's still not clear if Eva's parents are among them.
Many of the bodies are so burnt.
They can't be identified by sight.
The following day, Eva's asked to provide her parents' medical records.
She finally learns that neither of them survived.
I began trumbling immediately like my whole body was just shaking uncontrollably,
my hands, my arms, and my legs like
couldn't force myself to be still,
and it didn't go away for over 6 months.
The trumbling didn't go away.
Survivors of the blast are also traumatized.
I guess what probably haunts me more than anything...
I wouldn't know or do anything...
For a good while there, I had dreams and I was talking to my friends.
I'm not sure how rational that sounds,
but uh, I had did, it bothered me.
The disaster leaves Texas City grief-stricken.
The question on everyone's lips is what could have triggered this nightmare.
Now, by going deep into the offical investigation,
we can reveal the calamitous chain of events
that led to the Texas City explosion.
The first officials on the scene aren't industrial investigators,
they're agents from the FBI.
They arrive within hours of the disaster.
ÒòIn an era of global terrorism,
the agency is suspicious of any major explosion.
The Texan oil industry is a particular concern.
Since 9/11, these refineries have been designated high-value targets.
The potential for a terrorist atrocity is obvious.
The agents fear this disaster could be the start for a new wave of domestic terrorism.
They turn to eyewitnesses for the first clues.
Immediately, their attention is drawn by the mention of a white pickup truck.
Several witnesses recall hearing the truck's engine revving loudly
though there was no sign of any driver.
The agents need to know if these facts are as sinister as they sound.
But just as they think they're making progress,
other eyewitness statements shed further light on the case.
ÌThe agents learn that 6 minutes before the explosion,
liquid was seen spewing out of the blowdown stack.
And the pickup truck was parked less than 9 meters away.
They realize the escaping liquid could explain the mystery of the revving engine.
ÒNormally, an engine's carburetor forces clean air together with fuel,
which ignites, causing the engine to rev.
But the white pickup wasn't taking in ordinary air,
its engine was flooded with petrochemical fumes from the escaping liquid.
This would account for it revving in spite of the driver's absence.
A single spark from the running engine is all it would take to ignite the vapor.
It now looks like the escaping fluid is to blame for the blast.
Terrorism no longer seems likely,
and the FBI hands the investigation over to a new team.
1900 kilometers away, in Washington D.C.,
is the federal agency charged with taking the job on.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, or CSB,
was formed in 1998 to look into industrial accidents.
It's independent of any other branch of government,
the members of its board are all pointed directly by the President
and confirmed by the Senate.
ÒA team arrives in Texas City the day after the explosion.
It's led by chief investigator Don Holmstrom.
A trained lawyer with years of experience working in the refineries,
Holmstrom is regarded as the leading expert in petrochemical safety.
Over the last decade, he's investigated a string of major accidents.
The press refer to him as a safety evangelist.
The perfect man to handle the pressure of a high-profile investigation.
A catastrophic incident of this magnitude
certainly focuses a lot of attention from the media,
from the public in general
on an international level.
Holmstron knows progress will be slow.
Key witnesses are either dead or injured,
much of the evidence has been destroyed in the explosion,
and the blast site is unsafe.
One thing at least is clear.
Eyewitness testimony has placed the blowdown stack at the heart of the disaster.
This was the source of the liquid that seep under the white pickup truck.
Holmstrom knows the blowdown stack is the final safety outlet for the distillation tower.
Its function is to vent gases and contain small quantities of liquid.
But there's no way fluid should ever overflow from the 35-meter stack.
Something must have gone disastrously wrong.
But what?
The team needs to start gathering physical evidence from the blast site.
In particular, they need to find the computer hard drive from the main processing unit.
This holds a complete electronic record of the distillation process.
But progress is immediately hampered.
The explosion has released cancer-causing benzene gas,
and it could take days for it to disperse.
The investigators don't know when it will be safe for them to move in.
America's oil industry is desperate for answers.
Is this catastrophe a tragic one-off?
Or could it be repeated elsewhere?
Identical distillation towers exist in refineries across America.
If they're unsafe,
the oil industry could be crippled.
In the uncertainty that follows
gasoline prices hit an all-time high,
and the world's biggest economy is left on the brink of crisis.
An huge explosion rocks the British Petroleum oil refinery in Texas City.
170 people are injured.
15 are dead.
The FBI rules out the possibility of a terrorist attack.
It now falls to Don Holmstrom and his team from the Chemical Safety Board
to find out what went wrong.
Holmstrom knows the disaster can be traced a flammable liquid
that spewed out of the blowdown stack.
The stack is connected to the distillation tower,
and Holmstrom suspects that's where the liquid came from.
What he doesn't understand is how it could have reached the blowdown stack,
let alone have filled it.
During the distillation process, liquid in the tower should not exceed the level of 2 meters.
Holmstrom knows that to escape,
it must rise more than 46 meters above its correct level, to the top of the tower.
But there's a series of safe guards to prevent this happening.
First, an outlet control valve automatically regulates the flow of the liquid from the bottom of the tower.
If it begins to overfill,
the valve opens wider
and the level goes down again.
Second, a level indicator should provide operators in the control room
with a constant update on how full the tower is.
Attached to it is a high-level alarm,
which would go off if the tower starts to overfill.
Beyond that is a second backup alarm.
The system should be foolproof.
But if Holmstrom's suspicions are correct,
these safe guards must all have failed.
He needs to know what was going on in the tower before the blast.
ÒòHe begins by questioning eyewitnesses.
He soon learns the distillation tower was being started up on the same day as the explosion.
It's too bigger coincidence to ignore.
Although the startup is governed by strick safety guidelines,
it's potentially a risky process.
Could this be connected to the explosion?
Holmstrom begins questioning the operators who worked on the startup
and finds that his theory might be correct.
He discovers a night shift operator broke the safety guidelines.
Just after 3 am,
an alarm went off in the control room,
warning that the liquid level was slightly over 2.5 meters.
But the operator switched it off and did nothing.
He tells Holmstrom that overfilling the tower and ignoring the alarm is nothing unusual.
When the feed starts circulating through the system,
the level in the tower often falls.
He claimed overfilling the tower not only save time
but avoided the inconvenience of having to top it up later.
It's common practice.
He left the level at about 4 meters,
confident it would drop back towards 2 meters when the day shift operator started to circulate the feed.
Holmstrom has uncovered a clear breach of safety procedures
which could be linked to the explosion.
But when he questions the day shift operator, the man supports his colleague.
While he was on duty, he had a constant eye on the level indicator
and saw nothing to concern him.
It consistently showed a level of less than 3 meters.
It looks like this line of questioning could be leading Holmstrom up a dead end.
But Holmstrom decides to look more closely at the design of the level indicator.
And it's here, he makes his first breakthrough.
He discovers the indicator suffers from a fatal design flaw.
It can only measure liquid up to height of 3 meters
which shows as 100% on the operator's control panel.
Anything beyond this doesn't register on the level indicator.
Worse still, the indicator's design
means that if the liquid waste passes 3 meters, it could even show a dropping level.
Holmstrong realizes the operator's testimony does not approve the startup was safe.
His suspect is on the right track.
But even allowing for these mistakes,
there should be enough safe guards to prevent an explosion.
A second alarm situated above the first
should go off if the liquid level passes 2.5 meters.
Yet nobody recalls hearing it.
Holmstrom focuses on this backup alarm.
He goes through BP's work orders
and discovers another critical error.
The alarm had been reported as damaged before the explosion.
And there's no record of it being fixed.
Holmstrom now knows that of the tower's two high-level alarms,
one was deactivated,
and the other never worked in the first place.
But even with the alarm systems out of operation,
there are further safe guards to prevent excess liquid from rising in the tower.
The liquid level is regulated automatically by an outlet control valve.
If the level gets too high,
the valve automatically opens to allow more liquid out of the tower.
Could this also be faulty?
Without access to the blast site,
the investigators cannot know for sure.
Holmstrom confirms with the day shift operator that liquid did flow out of the tower at a normal rate.
To his horror, he learns the operator doesn't realize he should check this.
It's a series oversight.
But in itself, it's not enough to account for the disaster.
Safety guidelines dictate that a supervisor should always be on hand to oversee the flow of liquid during startup.
When Holmstrom speaks to the supervisor, he makes another breakthrough.
Just before 10 o'clock, he receives a phone call telling him his son had broken his arm.
He left his post
and handed over control to a colleague.
Holmstrom interviews the replacement supervisor,
who makes a shocking admission.
He had never handled a startup before,
and failed to make a note of the flow out of the tower.
So far, Holmstrom has uncovered slack operating practices,
poorly-maintained equipment,
and a supervisor leaving his post at a critical moment.
There's now no question in Holmstrom's mind
that the flaw at startup is to blame for the explosion.
But he still lacks firm evidence to prove it.
One week after the explosion, the team finally get the news they've been waiting for:
they're cleared to enter the blast site.
The investigators sift through the debris,
taking 200 photographs, as well as video footage.
A lot of evidence has been destroyed in the blast.
But the most important piece of evidence is intact:
the hard drive from the tower's control room.
It's the equivalent of an aircraft's blackbox,
and contains an electronic record of all the key processes that went on within the tower.
At last, Holmstrom has the information he hopes will substantiate his theory.
He immediately examines data from the outlet control valve.
As suspected, it's at the heart of the problem.
On the morning of the blast,
instead of being set to auto,
it was left closed.
The valve did not regulate the flow of liquid out of the tower as it should have.
At 9:52 am,
the day shift operator started the feed.
For 3 hours, he pumped liquid into the tower,
failing to notice none was falling out.
During this time, his supervisor also failed to notice the imbalance in the flow.
It's a potentially lethal situation.
But Holmstrom still needs to determine how the liquid escaped from the top of the tower.
He goes back to the hard drive
and finds that shortly after 1pm,
Òless than 20 minutes before the explosion,
the tower's pressure relief valves were forced to open.
These valves are designed to control gas, not liquid.
The computer confirms the liquid did reach the top of the tower
and escape down the gas pipes.
Once the valves were opened,
the path of fluid was cleared for it to reach the blowdown stack.
It would quickly have filled the 35-meter stack
and spewed out of the top.
Holmstrom's hunch is correct.
A catastrophic series of mistakes in the startup process
did cause the disaster.
When BP learns what happened,
the company accepts the responsibility for the blast.
But 2 months later,
BP pins most of the blame on low-level workers.
This leaves many in Texas City dissatisfied.
They know the poor safety record at the BP refinery
and feel their fellow workers have been scapegoated.
They have an ally in Don Holmstrom.
He agrees it's too easy to blame a handful of people.
A problem in blaming an invidiual is that you want could come to the conclusion
that: "Well, we've got rid of the individual and all our problems are solved."
Holmstrom wants to know how long these safety problems have existed.
He returns to the computer hard drive found in the wreckage.
It holds a complete record of the tower's previous startups going back for years.
He discovers a frightening catalogue of near-misses.
The record's proved the night shift operator had been telling the truth.
It was common practice to ignore safety guidelines during the startup process.
Out of 16 previous startups,
13 have liquid level above 3 meters,
the range of the level indicator.
Any of these could have ended in disaster.
But managers of the refinery failed to properly investigate the malpractice.
Certainly, the safety culture, as it existed before the incident,
left a lot to be desired.
Next, Holmstrom turns his attention to the location of the trailer where most of the victims died.
He's concerned it was sighted just 37 meters from the blowdown stack.
He wants to know how BP could justily locating it in such an exposed position.
To him, the risk should have been obvious.
This isn't the first time
workers have died in this way.
In 1995, at a refinery in Pennsylvania belonging to Pennzoil,
a trailer was located near two large storage tanks.
When the tanks exploded, 5 workers were killed.
The resulting investigation warned against placing trailers near flammable materials.
But BP disregarded this warning.
They decided the convenience of putting employees near the unit they were working on
should override safety considerations.
Holmstrom discovers BP try to justify the trailer's location
with an elaborate series of risk calculations.
The company decided the trailer safety depended on the length of time it was occupied.
So even it was dangerously close to the blowdown stack,
because it was empty much of the year,
the risk to employees was low.
Holmstrong finds the logic deeply flawed.
Certainly, if you're an occupant of the trailer and you're being sided next to a hazardous process unit,
it doesn't make any difference whether you're exposed
to arrest for several weeks or years,
period is still a risky situation for you.
Lack safety practices and employees left dangerously exposed,
it's a lethal combination,
particularly in light of the string of fatal incidents that have haunted Texas City.
The problems that existed in Texas City had been present for many years.
Safety was very problematic at the plant.
Workers were concerned about coming to work
because of the risk of catastrophic incidents.
It shouldn't be necessary to go to work everyday and under the threat of death.
This refinery has been killing people for years.
Obviously, it was built on evil ground,
they need to shut it down,
and put a marble statue with all of the names of the dead
in front of it, and just walk away from it.
Even before the explosion,
the Texas City plant was America's most dangerous oil refinery.
Since the 1970s,
accidents here have killed more than 30 workers.
I think these events are unrelated,
and there has been a few
and we were wretched ones.
However, Holmstrom believes BP's recent safety problems are related.
And a trail leaves directly to its most senior executives.
America's worst industrial accident for a decade
has killed 15 workers at BP's Texas City oil refinery.
Lots of folks were sure about their loved ones right now...
...A tragic, tragic day in Texas City.
Don Holmstrom and his team from the Chemical Safety Board are investigating a history of fatalities at the plant.
Despite BP's claims to be getting to grips with its poor safety record,
the team finds evidence to the contrary.
In 1998,
an internal memo from BP's board in London,
ordered all refinery managers to cut operating costs by 25%.
This cost cutting is directly to blame for the disaster.
The final safety outlet in the distillation process is the blowdown stack.
Despite the errors that occured during the startup,
an effective safety outlet could have prevented the tragedy.
But the blowdown stack is an ancient design,
Òmore than 50 years old.
Holmstrom discovers that in 2002,
BP decided again replacing the stack with a modern safety flare system.
This cutting-edge model is able to deal with overflowing liquid
while the flare burns off excess gas.
The new design would have prevented the disaster.
This is a case of, uh, a company denying the risk.
They knew the hazards.
Uh, they were aware of them.
But when they had the opportunity to take action,
they did not do so.
ÌReplacing the blowdown stack would have cost under 6 million dollars,
about a single day's production at the Texas City refinery.
For the people who work there,
it would have been a small price to pay.
It's people, people are the most important thing.
Not the plant.
Not the corporation itself.
It's the people.
It was 6 months after the accident before David Crow could fully walked again.
He still suffers a pain from his injuries.
But it's the mental scars that had taken the longest to heel.
He's not the same person.
He was a very laid-back, asy-going kind of guy
and now he's very angry at the loss of his friends.
It's causing us a lot of problems.
Like David,
Ralph Dean's wife Alisa also suffered a broken back.
Her gall bladder had to be removed
and 20% of her body was burnt.
For several weeks, doctors told Ralph
she might not survive.
My wife's gonna have to live with this for the rest of her life.
I mean this, this is the other part of our life that just always gonna be here.
And oh yes, I'm angry.
And that probably won't when we go away.
ÒEva Rowe is also struggling to cope.
More than a year after the explosion,
she still can't come to terms with the loss of her parents.
It's really hard, and you know, haven't either or one to lean on.
But I'm glad that they're together.
I wish I could still have both of them
but I couldn't pick out one or another,
I'm very glad they're together.
Since the explosion,
BP has set aside more than a billion dollars to pay compensation claims.
6 workers, including the original supervisor,
have won libel action
after the company wrongly blames them for the disaster.
BP has appointed a new site manager in Texas City
and improved its training program.
It's relocated its trailers
and has become replacing blowdown stacks.
The company is now carrying out a total overall of its global operation.
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