1919 — Sep 13, Murray Elevator Grain Dust Explosion, North Kansas City, MO — 14

— 14 NFPA. Report of Important Dust Explosions. 1957, p. 48.
— 14 Price. Dust Explosions. 1922, p. 124.
— 14 Safety Engineering, Vol. XXXVIII (38), No. 5, November, 1919, p. 312.
— 14 United States Grain Corporation. Grain Dust Explosion Prevention. June 1920, p. 21.
— 14 Western Society of Engineers. Journal of…, Vol. XXVI, No. 12. Dec 1921, p. 407.

Narrative Information

Safety Engineering: “September 13, 1919. North Kansas City, Mo. Murray Grain Elevator. Grain elevator. One 12-story building destroyed. Walls, steel frame and tile…. Cause, grain dust explosion. Fire started presumably in base¬ment. Discovered when explosion occurred, about 2.40 p. m. Alarm, telephone. Duration, 18 hours. Confined to building. Fire was re¬ roll by construction of building. Firemen handicapped by isolated position of building….. Persons in building, about 40. Killed, 14. Injured, 11. Means of escape, fire escape.” (Safety Engineering, Vol. XXXVIII (38), No. 5, November, 1919, p. 312.)

United States Grain Corporation: “In a very disastrous explosion which occurred September 13, 1919, in a large terminal elevator at Kansas City, Mo., 14 men lost their lives and 10 were seriously injured… The elevator was partially wrecked, the property loss being estimated at $650,000. This explosion was not confined to any one portion of the elevator, but propagated to all sections of the workhouse.

“The evidence at hand indicates that the explosion originated in the basement, in the vicinity of one of the receiving legs, where workmen were cleaning up the plant. Great difficulty was encountered in determining the exact cause of the explosion, owing to the fact that all the evidence required to establish it had been destroyed on account of the force of the blast. Judging from the violence of the explosion, the dust in this plant must have been very inflammable.

“The evidence secured from one of the workmen indicated that the source of ignition may have come from an electrical short circuit. This workman stated that he heard a sharp cracking noise shortly before the explosion, and thought that he had seen blue flashes of flame traveling along the electric light wires. The short circuit may have been caused by defective extension cords or the breaking of an unprotected lamp bulb in the dusty atmosphere present. Workmen in the basement were known to have been using extension cords at the time of the explosion, and it is possible that ignition came from such a source.” (US Grain Corporation 1920, pp. 21-22.)

Western Society of Engineers: “The explosion at the Murray Elevator in Kansas City in September, 1919, caused to loss of 14 lives…” (Western Society of Engineers. Journal of…, Vol. XXVI, No. 12. Dec 1921, p. 407.)

Sources

National Fire Protection Association. Report of Important Dust Explosions: A Record of Dust Explosions in the United States and Canada Since 1860. Boston: NFPA, 1957.
Price, David James. Dust Explosions: Causes and Methods of Prevention. Boston, MA: National Fire Protection Association, with permission of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 1922.

Safety Engineering, Vol. 38, No’s. 1-6, July-Dec, 1919. NY: Safety Press, Inc., 1919. Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=BSHOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=Safety+Engineering+Vol+38&lr=0

United States Grain Corporation. Grain Dust Explosion Prevention. New York, June 1920. Accessed at: http://www.archive.org/details/graindustexplosi00unitrich

Western Society of Engineers. Journal of the Western Society of Engineers, Vol. XXVI, December 1921, No. 12. Fort Wayne IN: WSE, 1921. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=qesMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0