What Went Wrong? Quiz | Specialized History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Ask anyone who is old enough to remember, what they were doing when this space shuttle exploded on January 28, 1986 and chances are they will remember. It was one of those defining moments in history. What was the name of this shuttle?

Answer: Challenger

The cause of the Challenger explosion, according to the Rogers Commission, were the faulty O-rings that sealed the joints of the solid rocket boosters, allowing pressurized gas to reach the external fuel tank. This caused the tank to fail structurally. Could this tragedy have been prevented? The answer is a resounding yes.

The Rogers Commission found that NASA managers had known about the potential problems with the O-rings. These managers had ignored warnings from engineers that launching the Challenger in cooler temperatures could have dangerous consequences.

As a result, seven crew members, including teacher Christa McAuliffe, lost their lives that day and left an indelible memory on those who watched the tragedy.

2. By the time the National Weather Service issued an alert that Sunday morning of August 28, 2005, the hurricane that was spiraling toward New Orleans had morphed from a weak Category 1 hurricane to a Category 5 monster. What was the name of the disastrous hurricane that left this Louisiana city in shambles?

Answer: Katrina

As we all know now, after Katrina hit New Orleans, the levees broke and water from surrounding lakes flooded 80 percent of the city. Why did the levees break? According to the corps of engineers who studied the aftermath, they admitted that there were problems with the design of the structures. According to the final report by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, assembled after Katrina, it states that the destructive forces of the hurricane were "aided by incomplete protection, lower than authorized structures, and levee sections with erodible materials."

3. On the morning of December 6, 1917, two ships, one loaded with 2,500 tons of explosives, collided. The resulting explosion killed nearly two thousand, injured another 9,000, and blinded two hundred. Where did this collision take place?

Answer: Halifax, Nova Scotia

Both ships had docked for the night in Halifax. The ship containing the explosives, the SS Mount Blanc, had been headed for the war in Europe. The Norwegian liner, the SS Imo, was docked in Halifax to pick up some coal before sailing to New York to collect relief supplies for war-stricken Belgium. Stubborn insistence on right-of-way caused the tragedy to occur.

The Imo, instead of following on course, headed toward the Mont Blanc. The narrows in which the ships were traveling could not accommodate the two ships and, after the captains of both ships blasted their horns, the Imo struck the Mount Blanc.

The ensuing blast was incredible. Fires suddenly appeared everywhere and the city of Halifax was all but destroyed. The captain of the Imo was killed instantly.

The captain of the Mont Blanc survived. To this day, blame for the tragedy has never been officially assigned.

4. On May 18, 1980, vulcanologist David Johnston had a clear view of this volcano, located in the state of Washington. He was 5.5 miles away when the volcano blew itself apart as he watched. Name this volcano.

Answer: Mount St. Helens

Unfortunately for David Johnston, he was one of fifty-seven who lost their lives that fateful day as well as thousands of big-game animals. The mountain had been tranquil until two months earlier when an earthquake awakened the sleeping giant. People let down their guard when the mountain seemed silent on May 17, the day before Mount St.

Helens erupted. The eruption was so devastating that it turned 230 miles of lush forest into a wasteland. Fortunately, lessons were learned from this cataclysm. After the eruption, Congress funded the U.S. Geographical Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory to monitor volcanoes in the Cascade Range, including Mount St.

Helens, Mount Rainier, and Mount Hood.

5. On January 12, 2010, this small Caribbean nation was decimated by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake. The world watched as this country virtually turned to rubble. What is the name of this nation which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic?

Answer: Haiti

Back in 2008, Eric Calais and Paul Mann, geophysicists who study fault lines in the Caribbean, predicted that Haiti would soon face a disastrous earthquake. They had been studying the Enriquillo fault, the line that Haiti sits upon, and came up with the grim forecast. Could the tragedy have been prevented? Calais thinks so.

Although earthquakes can't be prevented, he noted that there had been enough advance warning for the Haitian government to have made preparations. Calais and his team had alerted government officials four years earlier.

However, according to Calais, Haiti failed to implement emergency plans and to restructure crucial buildings like schools and hospitals. Hopefully other nations will heed the warnings and become proactive in their efforts to better prepare themselves for such calamities.

6. Often referred to as Toxic City, this southwestern city is home to four chemical plants and three refineries. On March 23, 2005, one of these refineries exploded. Where did this explosion take place?

Answer: Texas City, Texas

Safety failure resulted in the refinery explosion. The Texas City refinery was owned by BP, the same company responsible for the Gulf oil disaster in 2010. The explosion occurred in the plant's isomerization unit when hydrocarbon flow to the blowdown drum was overwhelmed, sending liquids over the top of the stack. Fifteen workers were killed and hundreds more were injured.

After the explosion, BP's operations came under intense scrutiny by OSHA and the CSHIB. In the end CSHIB concluded that BP failed to heed or implement safety procedures that had been recommended before the explosion reduced the refinery to rubble.

7. Mystery surrounds one of the most famous shipwrecks of the twentieth century. On the night of July 25, 1956, two liners had been moving through a thick blanket of fog. One liner was eastbound, the other westbound. The Stockholm, the smaller of the two liners, was heading eastbound when one of the liners suddenly emerged from the fog and struck the other. What was the name of the other, more famous, liner?

Answer: Andrea Doria

Exactly who was responsible for the collision has remained controversial. Since both ships had used radar to track each other, why did they collide? According to Harry Gunnar Nordenson, captain of the Stockholm, the Andrea Doria's crew could not handle radar gear properly.

The captain of the Andrea Doria, Piero Calamai, complained that the Stockholm was traveling east in a westbound shipping lane and should have been farther south. Captain Nordenson maintained that that the Andrea Doria made a last-minute panic turn right into the path of his ship. Legal aspects of the controversy ended when both liners agreed to drop claims against each other for damages to their respective ships.

8. Avalanches can occur anywhere there are mountains, snow, and the right conditions. Three friends, only one of whom survived, found out the hard way about an avalanche's power while snowmobiling on February 17, 2007. Name the Northwestern city where this tremendous avalanche occurred.

Answer: Helena, Montana

The destination for the trio was a remote spot in the Big Belt Mountains. They rode the snowmobiles up and down the steep slopes until, suddenly, a white wall, 4 feet high and 300 feet across, came roaring down the mountain. Eight hundred tons of snow slammed into them, burying them underneath. Avalanches are hard to see with the naked eye.

But there are risk factors. Eighty percent of avalanches occur during or within 48 hours of a snowstorm. Strong winds can be a factor. The winds can deposit snow into dangerously high drifts.

A sudden rise in temperature can also weaken the structure of the snowpacks as the snow melts. The survivor, Jason Crawford, later admitted that all three knew the conditions were right for an avalanche but they chose to ignore it. That poor decision has forever changed Jason's life.

He continues to snowmobile but in safer terrain.

9. This populous mid-west city experienced the collapse of one of its major bridges on the afternoon of August 1, 2007. The collapse killed thirteen people and injured 145 others. The bridge was the eight-lane I-35W bridge. In what city was it located?

Answer: Minneapolis

The rescue efforts were massive, involving city, county, and state rescue workers, the U.S. Army of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard and many civilian volunteers. Ninety-three people were rescued in three hours but the recovery of submerged vehicles and bodies took close to three weeks.

It took the National Transportation Safety Board five months to determine the cause of the collapse. The Safety Board determined that a design flaw was the culprit. Poor maintenance, corrosion, older welding technology, and fatigue cracks as well as harsh Minnesota winters also contributed to the collapse.

10. Train derailments in the U.S. seem like they belong to a bygone era, like the Old West. But they still occur and when they do, the results can be devastating. On January 5, 2005 two trains collided, one carrying tankers containing 270 tons of liquefied, compressed chlorine gas. It occurred near the Southern town of Graniteville. Name the state.

Answer: South Carolina

The collision caused a hole to be punctured in the midsection of one of the tankers, allowing the chlorine to escape into the air to form a toxic cloud over Graniteville. Nine people died and 550 sought medical attention. So what caused the derailment? The National Transportation Safety Board found that a switch was in the wrong position.

In their report, the Safety Board blamed the accident on train P22 crew's failure to reline it for mainline operations. The company fired the three crewmen responsible.

In response to the Graniteville incident and others like it, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the Senate to toughen federal oversight of rail safety.

Source: Author nmerr

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What Went Wrong? Trivia Quiz

Many disasters, natural and man-made, have occurred over the past decades. But why did they occur? Could they have been prevented? Take this quiz and find out.

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