1944 - Energy

Energy

Shasta Dam on the Sacramento River in California's Central Valley is completed for the Bureau of Reclamation after 6 years of construction, superintended by Frank T. Crowe. Second in size only to the Hoover Dam completed in 1936, the concrete structure is 602 feet (183 meters) high and 3,460 feet (1,055 meters) long. Its turbines initially generate 379,000 kilowatts of electricity.

Kentucky Dam is completed on the Tennessee River August 30 after 6 years' work by the Army Corps of Engineers for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Built at a cost of $118.5 million 22 miles before the Tennessee empties into the Ohio at Paducah, Ky., it is 206 feet high, stretches 8,422 feet across, and can generate 175,000 kilowatts of electricity.

Liquid natural gas (LNG) bursts out of two East Ohio Gas Co. storage tanks at Cleveland October 20, creating a firestorm that kills 131 people; 2 million gallons of LNG flow down the streets and into the sewers, exploding at the slightest spark, gutting 29 acres of houses and stores, and creating anxiety about the safety of LNG.

Tetraethyl lead pioneer Thomas Midgley Jr. dies at Worthington, Ohio, November 2 at age 55 after 4 years of paralysis. Holder of 117 patents, including some on Freon refrigerant and other chlorofluorocarbons, he has suffered from lead poisoning since the 1920s as a result of his work but has kept it hidden, pretending that he had polio. The New York Times reports that he succumbed to accidental strangulation "by a self-devised harness for getting in and out of bed."