2019 Philadelphia refinery explosion

A refinery owned by Gulf Oil Corporation in Philadelphia, located at Girard Point on the Schuylkill River in South Philadelphia, caught fire on Sunday, August 17, 1975. This incident grew into an 11-alarm fire, not brought under control until 24 hours later, and resulted in the death of eight firefighters of the Philadelphia Fire Department (PFD), injuries to 14 other firefighters, and the loss of four PFD vehicles.At the height of this fire, the loss of the huge, sprawling refinery complex was regarded as a real possibility as a tremendous firestorm enveloped two storage tanks, travelled through portions of the on-site piping, and destroyed the refinery's administration building.

Passyunk Township (Lenape Pahsayunk 'in the valley' from pahsaek 'valley') is a defunct township that was located in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Fort Beversreede (after 1633–1651) was a Dutch-built palisaded factorij located near the confluence of the Schuylkill River and the Delaware River. It was an outpost of the colony of New Netherland, which was centered on its capital, New Amsterdam (Manhattan), on the North River (Hudson River).

The George C. Platt Memorial Bridge is a through truss bridge that carries PA 291 (Penrose Avenue) over the Schuylkill River in Southwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was opened to traffic in 1951, replacing a swing bridge to the south which carried Penrose Ferry Road across the river. Originally called the Penrose Avenue Bridge, it was renamed in 1979 to honor Civil War hero George Crawford Platt (1842–1912). Today, the Platt Bridge is a key arterial route which carries an average of 56,000 vehicles daily. In 1967, a steel dividing wall was installed to separate eastbound from westbound traffic lanes. The lack of a barrier led to more than 30 head-on collisions on the bridge between 1964 and 1967. The coming wall was announced by the State Highway Department on November 15, 1967. The bridge passes over an oil refinery (originally owned by Gulf Oil, then by Sun Oil, now by Philadelphia Energy Solutions). Fires at the refinery have several times imperiled the bridge and even closed it for several hours during the 1975 Philadelphia Gulf refinery fire. On August 17, a fire began in a tank to the northeast of the bridge that was being filled with Venezuelan crude oil. As the fire enveloped much of the refinery, several explosions put a large crack in a smokestack next to the bridge. Officials closed the bridge for several hours, fearing that the stack might collapse or the fire might damage the bridge. Eight firefighters died fighting the fire. In 1986, two bronze bas-reliefs of Platt's visage were mounted on poles at each end of the bridge. The works were commissioned by Platt's great-great-grandson, Lawrence Griffin Platt, who raised $10,000 with the help of a former Gulf Oil executive, and were sculpted by Philadelphia artist Reginald E. Beauchamp. Both were later stolen, the first in 1987, and the second some time later. A $500 reward offered by the Philadelphia Daily News in 2002 was unsuccessful in securing their return.In June 2011, PennDOT began a three-year, $42.8 million rehabilitation project to repair and maintain the bridge, enabling it to continue to safely carry vehicular and pedestrian traffic for decades to come. Crews painted the bridge's steel truss and structural steel underneath the spans to protect them from the elements. They also rehabilitated and resurfaced the center truss spans; resurfaced concrete approach spans; repair structural steel; replaced or improved expansion joints; repaired concrete piers; repaired and replaced guide rail; and replaced damaged pedestrian railings. During construction, the bridge's four lanes were reduced to two; one in each direction. From May 7, 2012, until the completion of construction in June 2014, trucks and buses weighing more than seven tons or carrying hazardous material were banned from using the bridge to minimize the risk of accidents on one-lane sections.By 2018, the new paint started to peel away from areas of the superstructure above the deck, and the exposed metal began to rust.

Mingo Creek is a tributary of the Schuylkill River between the Eastwick neighborhood and Philadelphia International Airport, in the United States.

The Girard Point Bridge is a double-decked cantilevered truss bridge carrying Interstate 95 across the Schuylkill River in the American city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The bridge was opened in 1973. It is the last crossing of the Schuylkill River, which empties into the Delaware River less than half a mile downstream. It has an has an average of 148,500 vehicles per day, including 6% truck traffic.

The Passyunk Avenue Bridge is an American, double leaf bascule bridge that spans the Schuylkill River between South Philadelphia and the Southwest Philadelphia sections of the city of Philadelphia in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

WURD is an AM radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It broadcasts at 900 kHz AM with a talk format primarily targeted to African Americans, and is currently under the ownership of LEVAS Communications, LP. It is also heard via FM repeater W241CH on 96.1 MHz.

The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum is an automotive museum located at 6825 Norwitch Drive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The museum's collection consists of approximately 75 racing sports cars and has been assembled over more than 50 years by Frederick A. Simeone, a retired neurosurgeon and native of Philadelphia. Frederick Simeone has been ranked the #1 car collector by the Classic Car Trust Registry.

USNS Mohawk (T-ATF-170) is a Powhatan-class tugboat owned by the United States Navy that was in service from 1980 to 2005 with the Military Sealift Command before being placed in reserve during 2005. Mohawk was laid down on 23 March 1979 by the Marinette Marine Corporation at Marinette, Wisconsin. Launched on 5 April 1980, and delivered to the U.S. Navy on 16 October 1980, Mohawk was assigned to the Military Sealift Command (MSC), and placed in non-commissioned service as USNS Mohawk (T-ATF-170) in 1980. Mohawk is equipped with a 10-long-ton (10 t) capacity crane and a bollard pull of at least 54 long tons (55 t). A deck grid was fitted aft which contained 1-inch (25 mm) bolt receptacles spaced 24 inches (610 mm) apart. That allowed for the bolting down of a wide variety of portable equipment. There are two GPH fire pumps supplying three fire monitors with up to 2,200 US gallons of foam per minute (0.14 m3/s). A deep module can be embarked to support naval salvage teams. Mohawk was taken out of service on 16 August 2005 and placed in reserve in the Inactive Reserve Fleet at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

USS Forrest Sherman (DD-931) was the lead ship of her class of destroyer of the United States Navy. She was named for Admiral Forrest Sherman USN (1896–1951).

The Schuylkill River ( SKOOL-kil, locally SKOO-kəl) is a river running northwest to southeast in eastern Pennsylvania, which was improved by navigations into the Schuylkill Canal. Several of its tributaries drain major parts of the center-southern and easternmost Coal Regions in the state. It flows for 135 miles (217 km) from Pottsville to Philadelphia, where it joins the Delaware River as one of its largest tributaries. In 1682 William Penn chose the left bank of the confluence upon which he founded the planned city of Philadelphia on lands purchased from the native Delaware nation. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River, and its whole length was once part of the Delaware people's southern territories. The river's watershed of about 2,000 sq mi (5,180 km2) lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania, the upper portions in the Ridge-and-valley Appalachian Mountains where the folding of the mountain ridges metamorphically modified bituminous into widespread anthracite deposits located north of the Blue Mountain barrier ridge. Millions of tons of coal from Pennsylvania's Anthracite Coal Region flowed by waterway and rail into Philadelphia to feed the iron and steel industry. The source of the Schuylkill's eastern branch is in heavily mined land, one ridgeline south of Tuscarora Lake along a drainage divide with the Little Schuylkill River, about a mile east of the village of Tuscarora and about a mile west of Tamaqua, at Tuscarora Springs in Schuylkill County. Tuscarora Lake is one source of the Little Schuylkill. The West Branch starts near Minersville and joins the eastern branch at the town of Schuylkill Haven. It then combines with the Little Schuylkill River downstream in the town of Port Clinton. The Tulpehocken Creek joins it at the western edge of Reading. Wissahickon Creek joins it in northwest Philadelphia. Other major tributaries include: Maiden Creek, Manatawny Creek, French Creek, and Perkiomen Creek. The Schuylkill joins the Delaware at the site of the former Philadelphia Navy Yard, now the Philadelphia Naval Business Center, just northeast of Philadelphia International Airport.