City on Fire: The Forgotten Story of a Disaster That Destroyed a Town and the Landmark Legal Battle That Ensued

Great information on a forgotten tragedy

My mother was 5 years old when this tragedy took place. She has told me many stories about the tragedy and the actions that my grandparents took to save others and themselves. I found this story to be very intriguing and thought provocative.

Bill Minutaglio's Portrait of Hell in the First Person.

Bill Minutaglio has written a portrait of what may only be described as 'hell in the first person.' I was in Danforth Elementary School in Texas City, Texas, at 9:12 AM on April 16, 1947, when the jaws of hell yawned opened and tried to consume all of us. In the event hell only extinguished some 800 hundred of us. All of those who survived that day have personal memories. Bill was kind enough to use some of mine as well as the memories of my father, mother and brother in his history of this event in my home town. He has painted realistic pictures of my parents, our friends and family and a brave high school student named Forrest Walker, Jr. who plucked a very freighten 1st grader out of the stampede of children from Danforth Elementary School that morning. I was that 1st grader and Forrest has been a personal hero of mine over the 56 years since that morning. I will never forget the conversation that morning between Forrest and my father, Curtis Trahan, after Forrest had safely delivered me to my father's place of business. As we parted, Dad's words to Forrest were to the effect that Forrest should go find his parents. Forrest found his mother although he was not able to find his father. Ultimately, Forrest found Mr. Walker's body on the floor of the high school gymnasium, converted into a make-shift morgue. Bill Minutaglio has written very loving protraits of Mayor Curtis Trahan, who is my father, Father William Roach, the local Catholic pastor who did not survive the event, Forrest Walker, the high school student, and many of the other heros who that morning and over the ensuing days, weeks, months and years, discovered just how very brave they really were. Bill Minutaglio's book fascinates me as: a son of two of the central figures, Curtis and Edna Trahan; a beneficiary of the courage and compassion of another, Forrest Walker; and, as a survivor of this disaster. I hope readers of Bill Minutaglio's book will understand and appreciate the difference between how our nation responded to the plight of Texas City, Texas, its casualties and its survivors in 1947 and how our nation has responded to the City of New York, its casualties and its survivors of the Twin Towers disaster of September 11, 2001. Bill Minutaglio has pointed out that, in many ways, Texas City was the scale model or dress rehersal for the nation's response to the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. In the beginning, the reader may find Bill Minutaglio's 'newspaper' format to be unusual. If the reader will think of each article as an indepth 'feature article' on that particular facet of the total story, it will make the 'read' much more meaningful. Bill's treatment has done for this reader what no other treatment of the Texas City disaster has been able to achieve: the characters and events are alive and vivid within the book itself. I hope that the readers will enjoy this book as recent history and can place its story within the context of the events of our more recent history: the outrages at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the Twin Towers in New York City.

First Grade Truama

I was in first grade at Danforth Elementary School on April 16, 1947 when the City on Fire began. This event dominated my entire childhood and since September 11, 2001 has haunted my memory again. I am still trying to sort out the memories and this book has been very enlightening and helpful. My thanks to Bill Minutaglio for such a well written and easy to read book that tells the story of the good people of Texas City that should never be forgotten. I am especially grateful for his portral of Mayor Trahan who, if this disaster happened today, would have gotten as much press as Mayor Juiliano. That day people thought the world was coming to an end. It's difficult to know what are my own memories and what I heard others say as a child. But no one could have told me about the interior wall of my classroom falling over the rows of desks nor could they have put in my mind the utter chaos on the school playground. Miracle of miracles, my two brothers and I found each other in the sea of crying children...and simply walked home. Like the people in Bill Minutaglio's book, we just did what we had to do. We walked down sixth street past Michael's Jewelry store and my brother saw a diamond ring on the sidewalk. He told my mother later he started to pick it up and bring it to her but didn't. I was always told that when I got home I was covered in blood but did not have a scratch on me. I wonder whose blood it was. Was some other child critically injured that was near me? Bill Minutaglio's book makes it clear that no one will ever know exactly how many people were killed or injured that day. These days for such an event we would immediately have counselors available to traumaized individuals. We had none such then. The people of Texas City just went on with their lives. This book should be required reading for students of Texas History so that Texas City will not be 'the forgotten disaster'.

Ghosts of the Past Revisited

Having been born and raised in Texas City, this book captured my interest. Within the pages, I found names of people I knew, even though I wasn't born until 3 years later. Mr. Galbreath was probably my 8th grade American History teacher who taught me to love history. Mr. Louis Shannon, the bicycle repairman, lived next door to my grandparents and I often visited him in his shop with my father. We shopped at the Nuchels grocery store and I remember where Agee's was for many years as well as the old City Hall and the clinics and hospitals. Growing up and going to my doctor, I remember seeing photographs of the disaster all over his waiting room walls. Today, I visited Texas City and found my doctor's donated train sets upstairs in the city's museum. My father, Otto Welch, was 24 at the time and the day he felt the earth shake, he grabbed my baby cousin, Elaine, from her bed right before the wall of my grandmother's house fell onto the baby bed. He's her hero as well as mine. 'City on Fire' is full of the history of a mistreated city, but one that I am proud to call my hometown. Thank you Bill Minutaglio for a book of history, well written.

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