Even as well-paying factory jobs evaporated from cities in the nation's rust belt, Houston's suburbs have remained, for the most part, a working man's paradise.
In both the manufacturing industries northwest of town and the petrochemical plants on the southeast side, young men still go to work in the same factories as their fathers before them. The former Cameron Iron Works plant, off U.S. 290 here, 15 miles northwest of Houston, is no exception. Since at least the Depression, Cameron - now known as Wyman-Gordon Metal Forging Inc. - has been stamping out metal parts for oil wells, armaments and the aviation industry, providing jobs for as many as three generations in a family.The factory has had a safety record that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration classifies as "outstanding," but the men who work here know that their jobs are inherently dangerous.
"You follow the rules, but it doesn't keep you up nights," said a worker in his 20s outside Wyman-Gordon's flower-laden fence late Monday night. "When one of these things blows, it blows."
At 11:45 Sunday night, less than 24 hours before the factory was scheduled to shut down for the Christmas holidays, Wyman-Gordon's plant blew. According to investigators with the Harris County Fire Marshal's office, a skeleton crew of mostly maintenance workers mistakenly thought three 70-foot-tall tanks of nitrogen under high pressure had been de-pres-sur-ized. When one worker loosened a bolt in a tank, which is used to drive a metal press, the force of the escaping nitrogen under 5,000 pounds of pressure per square inch blew a hole in the building's roof 40 feet by 50 feet.
Eight men, most of whom were on a catwalk above the tanks, died. Two injured men, 31-year-old Gregory Dargin and and 57-year-old Santiago Galindo, were taken by medical helicopter to Hermann Hospital in Houston, where they are in stable condition.
A Harris County sheriff's deputy, investigating the accident late Monday night, said he heard the blast at his house more than 10 miles away. Like the dozens of medical examiners, OSHA workers, company officials and fire marshals working around the clock to piece together what happened here, the sheriff's deputies were polite but grim.
Thirty-six hours after the explosion, members of Local 15 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers gathered at their lodge to mourn the dead and provide help to their families.
"I knew all eight of them," said Nathon Choate, 54, an inspector of airplane parts who has worked at the plant since 1964. "One of them, Brian Meche, I knew when he was born. I worked with his daddy at Cameron. It just hurts."
"Brooks comes over to my department every morning," said Jesse Howard, 62, a production welder at the plant since 1961 and the president of Local 15. Howard was referring to Jim E. Brooks Jr., 55, a maintenance worker killed in the blast.
"It's going to be real hard," Howard said. "Some of the boys that died, their daddies still work out there. Every day they walk through that door, it's going to remind them."
Gina Rose, 30, the secretary-treasurer of Local 15, said: "We're working with the families as best we can. We're providing counseling and anything else we can."
Rose said the union had opened a relief fund for the families and on Monday coordinated a blood drive for the two injured workers. At the same time, she said, the union is trying not to intrude.
"We're giving them an opportunity to grieve," she said.
As union officials and management helped investigators at the scene go about their grisly business, other factory workers fielded telephone calls about funeral arrangements. The coroner's office is not expected to release the bodies before this weekend.
This close-knit group of families took turns on Tuesday looking after the bereaved, caring for children and cooking for families in shock.
Whatever went wrong, union members and officials alike are quick to absolve the company.
"We don't have any problems with management at all about safety," Choate said. "If there's a problem, they jump on it."