'A series of explosions occurred on March 23, 2005, at the BP Texas City refinery during the restarting of a hydrocarbon isomerization unit. Fifteen workers were killed and 180 others were injured, many of them seriously. All of the fatalities occured in or near office trailers located close to the blowdown drum. The explosions occurred when a distillation tower flooded with hydrocarbons and was overpressurized, causing a geyser-like release from the vent stack. Houses were damaged as far away as three-quarters of a mile from the refinery (...)
Simply targeting the mistakes of BP's operators and supervisors misses the underlying and significant cultural, human factors at all levels, and organizational causes of the disaster that have a greater preventative impact. One underlying cause was that BP used inadequate methods to measure safety conditions at Texas city. Otherwise, the safety impact of mergers, reorganizations, downsizing, and budget cuts must be evaluated.'