Talk:PEPCON disaster

message: A lot of this article is taken word for word from the FEMA Report which I believe is in the public domain.
:From the front page of the report: "This is Report 021 of the Major Fires Investigation Project conducted by TriData Corporation under contract EMW-8-4321 to the United States Fire Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency." ... Based on this I would say that it is more likely than not that the report is NOT public domain and that we'll need to trash the bulk of the article. Only works produced by federal government employees as part of their work are PD, not generally works produced under contract. We need to contact FEMA to confirm and potentially take action. If it does turn out to be PD there are a number of good photographs inside that we could use. --Gmaxwell 15:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source of article 

message: I noticed the tone cleanup tag and investigated to find the reason it was marked.  I found no history on who tagged this, nor when or why, all of which seems to violate the Wiki:Cleanup rules and procedures.  
This topic was the focus of a "Modern Marvels" episode on the History Channel this evening, and both presentations appear to be in agreement with each other.
The article seems to conform to the NPOV criteria.  If there is a style problem, then it must be identified in a specific manner that can be addressed.  Kenny56 04:17, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup Notes 

message: Go to www.spiketv.com to see the show called World's Scariest Explosions caught on tape shown on 2-5-06. This disaster is featured in that show. It shows a BIG hole being blown into the desert floor when the plant detonated. Martial Law 05:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spike TV

message: the History channel will feature this in a show called Shockwave, which this matter is featured. This should be noted. Airtime is 8pm-9pm CST this Friday. 65.163.115.114 (talk) 06:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: History Channel

message: It is rumored, yet not the cause of this, that it is from: "
Someone smoking in the place. See above show. 65.163.115.114 (talk) 06:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cause

message: According the the FEMA Report the two victums were the man who called the fire department and an employee in a wheelchair.  However, on Discovery Channel's "Blueprint for Disaster: Destruction in the Desert", an episode on the PEPCON disaster, two former employee's state that the two vitims were the man who called the fire department and another man who was watching the fire and ignored their  requests for him to leave, with no mention of him being in a wheelchair.
It seems clear that there were two victims at the plant, but doesn't the discussion of the video also mention a third victim, a driver killed when his car was hit by the shock wave from one of the explosions? ("In the video of the incident, the resultant shockwave struck a nearby highway, where it blasted a car off its wheels, killing the driver within.")  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.137.103 (talk) 09:45, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two Victims 

message: Has anyone published estimates of the sizes of the explosions? I'm curious how they compare to nuclear blasts in terms of megatons of TNT. --63.105.26.46 19:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: According to DamnInteresting the larger one was around 1 kiloton. -Interested2 20:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Windows getting blown out at 3 miles means about 5 kilotons, while 1.5 mile structural damage and plane being buffeted at 7 miles points toward 10-20 kilotons. Unless these distances are wildly exaggerated 250 tons is way too low of an estimate. I saw the video and it definitely looked like a kiloton range blast. When thinking about the yield I always think of the 'estimated' and 'approximately' qualifiers used regarding the amount of chemicals stored at the site in every article I have read and video I have seen about this event. -vman 06:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Damages to the surrounding community were surveyed and interpreted as airblast overpressures versus distances, which allowed an estimate of 1-kiloton nuclear free-air-burst for the equivalent explosion yield. This could be reproduced by 250-tons TNT burst on the ground surface" from the Sandia National Labs report. Jamesday 03:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Estimated size of explosions? 

message: I've made extensive edits to the article and provided the proper sources, so as a result I am removing the footnote tag. Aplomado talk 22:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed footnote tag 

message: The following coordinate fixes are needed for PEPCON disaster
 36.036740,-115.036906 is more accurate. 
See http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA396009&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
See page 45.  The map inidcates the plant & explosions were close to the rail line, not American Pacific Drive.
I used ArcMap to register the map on page 45 to a BING map background to get the location of the large explosion, using the branch of the rail lines on the left, and the 100M scale bar for size.  The north arrow on the map  is incorrect and is really pointing more NNE.
—144.166.176.190 (talk) 23:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: . Deor (talk) 11:58, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinate error 

message: In one paragraph: 
"The combined explosions released estimated energy of approximately 1.0 kilotons of TNT according to one source"
Later in the article:
"An investigation estimated that the larger explosion was equivalent to about one kiloton of TNT..."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.60.184.146 (talk) 18:55, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  appears to contradict itself about the TNT-equivalent size of the explosions 

message: I, Jason Halker, son of Greg Halker, grandson of Bruce Halker would like to clarify that Bruce was not in a wheel chair at the time of the accident nor at anytime prior to the accident.— Preceding unsigned comment added by JasonHalker (talk • contribs) 00:27, 23 March 2015‎ 
:Mover of statement 220 of Borg 13:57, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from top of page 

message: What makes this a "disaster"? Only two people died. There are more deadly industrial accidents which are not referred to as "disasters". I do not like this modern trend of labelling every minor incident as a "disaster" and think the article would be better named "PEPCON explosion". Buttons0603 (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: A reasonable idea. Want to start a formal WP:MOVEREQ? DMacks (talk) 17:35, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: An accident becomes a disaster when there is significant loss or life OR property. While only two people died, there were 372 reported injuries. Additionally, the property damage was estimated to be roughly $100MM. Adjusted for inflation (2018), that's ~$213.7MM. An industrial accident may be deadly, but not necessarily affect the surrounding community in a significant way. It is the significant impact to a surrounding community that qualifies an event as a disaster. Oxcart2006 (talk) 20:01, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disaster? 

message: The plant was located near, but not in, Henderson. The property was later annexed. This should be clarified. GA-RT-22 (talk) 12:53, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a reliable source that can verify this? - Aoidh (talk) 13:15, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The NASA report says "PEPCON operated in Clark County, NV, 10 miles southeast of Las Vegas, NV, near Henderson" . Do you have a source that says it was in Henderson? There isn't one cited in the article. GA-RT-22 (talk) 13:53, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as contemporary reporting at the time which would be more accurate if you're suggesting the information has subsequently changed, there's this government report from Sandia National Laboratories as well as this report from OSTI, both published the year the incident occurred. A NASA PDF saying (24 years later) that the plant was "near" the city doesn't mean it was outside of the city's boundaries, just that it wasn't within the city proper, nor does that PDF support the idea that the property was later annexed into the city itself. - Aoidh (talk) 14:05, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I’m looking at the exact spot marked in the interactive map under “Fires and Explosions”, the spot marked is a parking lot in the middle of a very dense section of city. It doesn’t match the video in the slightest, as the video shows a large, open desert with no buildings very close to the explosions. 99.48.52.156 (talk) 04:41, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: While it's possible that the spot marked is inaccurate, that doesn't appear to be the case. It's worth noting that this incident happened in 1988 and an area on the outskirts of an American city experiencing rapid growth can change dramatically over 35 years. I checked on Google Earth Pro's historical imagery of the site and in 1985 (the closest time to the incident) it indeed was a small cluster of buildings surrounded by desert; the next closest building that I could clearly make out was about a mile away. - Aoidh (talk) 05:02, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  The plant was not in Henderson