On June 8, 1998 at 9:18 AM CST a series of

dust explosions A dust explosion is the rapid combustion of Particulates, fine particles suspended in the air within an enclosed location. Dust explosions can occur where any dispersed powdered combustible material is present in high-enough concentrations in the ...

occurred at the DeBruce Grain Elevator near

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the List of cities in Kansas, most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397, ...

, US, resulting in the deaths of seven workers and trapped ten others. The disaster led to significant changes to safety practices in

agriculture in the United States Agriculture is a major industry in the United States, which is a net exporter of food. As of the 2017 census of agriculture, there were 2.04 million farms, covering an area of , an average of per farm. Agriculture in the United States is hi ...

and led to the creation of OSHA's Grain Elevator Explosion Investigation Team.

Background

The DeBruce Grain Elevator was constructed between 1953 and 1955 by Chalmers & Borton for the Garvey Grain Company. It is located approximately southwest of the city of Wichita. At the time of the accident it was the largest

grain elevator A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lowe ...

in the world, being long with a total of 310 grain storage silos (246 circular grain silos and 164 interstice grain silos). Prior to the explosions, the south gallery, the name for the structure above grain silos that features conveyor belts, had just been cleaned, while the north gallery had not. At the time of the accident there were 20 workers on the property, 11 working for the DeBruce Grain Company, 9 working for Labor Source Incorporated, 3 working for Industrial Maintenance Inc., 2 working for Dusenbery Trucking, 1 working for Lange Company, and 1 working for Rob Heimerman Trucking.

Accident

The believed origin of the explosion was when a lack of lubrication caused a roller bearing to stop, locking the roller into a static position while the conveyor belt continued rolling over it, heating up and igniting the accumulated grain dust inside the roller. The unsafe amount of grain dust throughout the elevator led to a rapid spread of the explosion, where it travelled to the head house and then shot in both directions through the north and south galleries. The damage to the north gallery was minimal due to its recent cleaning, while the damage to the south gallery was much more catastrophic, where the explosion continued through empty silos into the basement. Casualties exclusively occurred in the south array and the head house, where the explosions caused the most damage. With four fatalities occurring within the west tunnel of the south array, another fatality and four injuries occurring outside the south array, one injury inside the south gallery, one fatality and one injury outside the east face of the head house, and one fatality and five injuries inside the head house itself. Ten others on site were not injured or trapped in the accident.

Victims

The seven men who died in the accident were as follows: * Jose Luise Duarte, 41, working for DeBruce Grain * Howard Going, 65, working for DeBruce Grain * Lanny Owen, 43, working for DeBruce Grain * Victor Manuel Castaneda, 26, working for LSI * Raymundo Diaz-Vela, 23, working for LSI * Jose Prajedes Ortiz, 24, working for LSI * Noel Najera, 25, working for LSI

Rescue operation

First responders A first responder is a person with specialized training who is among the first to arrive and provide assistance or incident resolution at the scene of an emergency. First responders typically include law enforcement officers (commonly known as ...

arrived within ten minutes of the explosion, survivors climbed and were helped up to the silo tops where a crane borrowed from a local company was used by Sedgwick County fire rescue to lower them to the ground. At one point a US Army helicopter from nearby Fort Riley was used to lift an injured worker from the gallery roof of the south array. Rescues on the first day took about four hours. The next day, with workers still missing,

US President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed For ...

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

declared the accident a federal emergency, which allowed

FEMA The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

to assist in the rescue and recovery operations. 20 trained searchers and 42 support personnel were sent to help local crews by FEMA. The last missing worker was recovered deceased five weeks after the accident.

Aftermath

The investigation was led by OSHA's newly created Grain Elevator Explosion Investigation Team, whose investigators arrived two weeks following the accident. In February, 2001, DeBruce Grain agreed to pay $685,000 in fines while admitting no fault. In 2010, DeBruce was purchased by

Viterra Viterra Limited is a Canadian grain handling business, that began as the nation's largest grain handler, with its historic formative roots in prairie grain-handling cooperatives, among them the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. Viterra Inc grew into a g ...

, and the grain elevator remains in operation today.

References