Failure to Learn: The BP Texas City Disaster

Respected OHS expert Professor Andrew Hopkins discusses the causes of a major explosion at the Texas City Oil Refinery on March 23, 2005. The explosion killed 15 workers and injured more than 170 others. Failure to Learn also analyses the similarities between this event and the Longford Gas Plant explosion in Victoria in 1998, featured in his earlier book Lessons from Longford.


Professor Andrew Hopkins is being recognised by the European Process Safety Centre in October 2008, in recognition of his contribution to safety. Professor Hopkins is the first winner to receive the award, outside of Europe, which is a demonstration of the impact of his valuable work worldwide. Andrew has been awarded a prize by the European Process Safety Centre for "extraordinary contribution to process safety", the first time this has been awarded outside of Europe He also appears in the US Chemical Safety Board film on Texas City and has been invited to appear in a subsequent film 


The foreword for the book was written by Carolyn Merritt, chair of the CSB at the time of the accident and subsequent inquiry 


Professor Hopkins poses questions such as: 

 - Why was the number of victims so large? 

 - Who was blamed for the explosion? 

 - What were the real causes? 

 - Had lessons been learnt from the earlier incident at Longford? 


Has anything changed as a result of the Texas City accident?