[bnk]

"Little known disasters in your city"



Forumer ethereal reality
recommended a topic for thread titled "little known disasters in your city" after I posted photos on The Eastland Disaster in the “Historic Chicago Photographs” thread.

Little known disasters may be more interesting and educational for we have all heard of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

A few other "little known disasters" that come to mind are

Boston Molasses Disaster
The Halifax Explosion
Texas City Disaster
Iroquois Theater Fire
Johnstown Flood
Peshtigo Fire


Photos would be appreciated as well as a link to more detailed information on the specific tragedy. It would be just too much work for only one person to dig for photos for most of our national city disasters.






I would like to start by going back and remember July 24th 1915 when 845 lives, including 22 entire families, were lost on that summer day.


The death toll on that one summer day from the Eastland was four times as great as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871! The death toll of the Eastland was a few hundered under the sinking of the Lusitania that helped propel the US of A in to the Great War. The death toll number was more that 50% of the dead from the Titanic in the same year.

Let us never forget.





http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/9940000/9941686.jpg
http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/9940000/9941686.jpg



http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/fujita7bdfireman.jpg
http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/fujita7bdfireman.jpg



http://homicide.northwestern.edu/images_fk/timeline/1915/large/442.jpg
Eastland disaster, crowd standing behind police line on LaSalle Street looking south from Water Street
Chicago Daily News, Inc., photographer.




http://chicagopc.info/Chicago%20postcards/water/Misc/eastland%20disaster%20funeral.JPG
http://chicagopc.info/Chicago%20postcards/water/Misc/eastland%20disaster%20funeral.JPG

Eastland Steamer Disaster, Funeral of the Sindelar Family, All 8 Members












http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland







Photo credits to maritimequest.com

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/eastland.htm

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1914_eastland.jpg
Eastland seen between June 1914-July 1915 sailing for the St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company.



http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_24_1.jpg

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_24_2.jpg
July 24, 1915: Eastland on her side in the Chicago River

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_24_3.jpg
July 24, 1915: Eastland on her side in the Chicago River. The tug Kenosha is seen bringing survivors from the wreck to the dock.



http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_24_8.jpg
July 24, 1915: Bodies being removed from the Eastland.




http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_24_9.jpg
July 24, 1915: A fireman has the grim task of carrying a dead baby from the wreck of the Eastland.



http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_24_13_rob_gardner.jpg

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_24_11.jpg
July 24, 1915: Bodies being removed from the Eastland.

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_24_15.jpg
July 24, 1915: One of the 844 dead being carried to the morgue.


http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_07_a.jpg
July 1915: Inside the capsized Eastland.

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_08_14_c.jpg
August 14, 1915: The wreck of the Eastland being righted by the tug Favorite and a barge crane.

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1915_08_c.jpg
August 1915: The Eastland at the Halsted street dock.

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1918_uss_wilmette.jpg
USS Wilmette (Ex- Eastland) undergoing some refitting at Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois. Note only one stack is installed.

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/eastland/1932_uss_wilmette.jpg
USS Wilmette seen at Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois in the 1930's.






























P0Qxy5yAXb4











http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/EN-Chicago_History_Eastland.gif
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/EN-Chicago_History_Eastland.gif

[Steely Dan]

^ yeah, the eastland disaster is one of the greatest American tragedies in terms of loss of life that pretty much no one outside of Chicago has heard of.

[JDRCRASH]

There was this 20-30 car pileup in L.A. a few years back. If I recall, several people died and many were injured. Of course, I don't know if i'd consider that a disaster.

But then again, there was the Metrolink crash a few months ago in Chatsworth that was the worst train wreck America has seen in 15 years. Almost 30 died, including a police officer.

[BTinSF]

"Bloody Thursday"/San Francisco General Strike of 1934
"Rounding up the Reds"

dku-MFnIxaU

aOAFEi1Yc9M&feature=related

4udVOFgFgUY&feature=related

[bnk]

At the end of your first video BTinSF...

The police have mounted the only mounted Gas squad in the world. [Hell even the horses are protected from poison gas for petes sake.bnk]


That gas will drive those commies into the open, from their rats nests of revolution, Yep there they are, thousands being driven out by the stinging clouds of poison, yes there is that stinging gas cloud!


[my paraphrase for such a weird time in our history.bnk]


I never knew.

See this can be educational.

Thanks BTinSF.

[hammersklavier]

There's the Passyunk Homes here in Philly...In the '60s, a storage tank at the Sunoco refinery went boom, and about 30 years later, it was discovered that a leak precipitated by that explosion had wandered under the Passyunk Homes public housing project. The contamination was so severe the residents were evacuated immediately, kinda like Love Canal up in Buffalo.

[brickell]

I'm not sure how well known it is outside of Florida, heck, I'm not sure a lot of people in Florida know about it.

The 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane

It was the first Cat 5 hurricane on record and created havoc in Guadalulpe and Puerto Rico. It later made landfall in Palm Beach as a Cat 4. That would be bad enough, but what people didn't realize is that the storms winds caused the water in Lake Okeechobee to slosh over it's banks sending a wall of water over the flat as a board agricultural areas south of the lake. Officially 1800+ were killed that night, but numbers are likely higher as many of those killed were field migrants from the Caribbean who were not always documented and many bodies were washed into the everglades never to be seen again.

[ThisSideofSteinway]

^ yeah, the eastland disaster is one of the greatest American tragedies in terms of loss of life that pretty much no one outside of Chicago has heard of.

New York City had a similar event about a decade before that one - the General Slocum Disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_slocum). (This was the city's single largest loss of life pre-9/11)

There was also the Malbone Street Wreck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbone_Street) in Brooklyn, in which a subway going about 40 MPH on a curve that should have been taken at 6 MPH flew off the tracks and hit the wall. 93 people were killed.

[Steely Dan]

New York City had a similar event about a decade before that one - the General Slocum Disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_slocum). (This was the city's single largest loss of life pre-9/11).

fascinating. the slocum disaster in NYC was a fire, and the eastland disaster in chicago was an accidental rollover, but it is strange that both cities experienced such horrible tragedies with ships still in port within a decade of each other.

[xzmattzx]

There were many explosions at Eleutherian Mills, DuPont's blackpowder yard located on the banks of the Brandywine River just outside of Wilmington. Big ones occured several times, such as in 1818, 1854, 1857, 1861, 1863, 1864, 1869, 1876, 1890, 1898, 1915, and 1920. Bodies were flung a hundred yards into the air for the bigger explosions, leading to the phrase "crossing the creek" to describe explosions at the mills. A couple of the very biggest explosions could be felt as far away as Philadelphia, and debris from the explosion would be found up to 5 miles away.


DuPont's buildings at the mills were always angled towards the river to direct explosions towards the river. Debris and people would end up either in the Brandywine or on the other side of the river.

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/6613/dscf8340pb.jpg

The last major explosion took place in 1920, and combined with the company's shift into chemicals, helped to close down the powder yards for good. The crater left by the explosion, as well as the machinery and building debris, are still in the same spot as they were when the explosion happened.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/9734/dscf8353pb.jpg

[flamesrule]

wow these are devastating:yes:

[muppet]

London has its great disasters very, very periodically in the past 2000 years having been annihilated many times. These are some of the least known ones:


23. 1952 Great Smog, in the worst disaster of its kind a cold air inversion settles over the city, trapping the choking coal smoke. All transport stops and visibility is only a few metres, animals leave the city and the fog creeps into houses leaving a brown oily residue. 4000 die in those four days, and a further 8,000 of respiratory problems in the following weeks. For years afterwards many bodies would be found walled in their homes:

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/1952-smog.jpg http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38552000/jpg/_38552701_smog300women.jpg


15. 1703 1st November sees the 'perfect hurricane' develop over southern England. What becomes known as the Great Storm takes between 8000-15,000 lives that night, the Thames is blocked by 700 shipwrecks:

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/graphics/photos0708/great_storm_1703.jpg

22. After the Blitz (in which London was bombed continuously for 3 months), a lesser known offensive were the world's first rockets that were launched in their thousands 3 years later. 1944-45 Thousands of V1 and V2 doodlebug attacks that prove especially deadly due to lack of warning. They kill 9,000 in the latter years of the war.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3243/2433937931_c5a81faae4.jpg?v=0 http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3117/2417432048_b1f43998ff.jpg?v=0 http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/66/images/110510948021310581420_1.jpg


7. The Great Fire of London destroyed the city in 1666. A lesser known one was in 1212 Another Great Fire destroys a large part of the medieval city. London Bridge catches fire at both ends, with 3000 burnt, drowned or crushed in the panic:

http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/csl0467l.jpg

[Minato Ku]

Unlike what people believe Paris was bombed during the second world wars.
Mostly by alliers but also by Luftwaffe.

Thousands of bombs fell on Paris and its suburbs
Thousands of people died.

The worst bombardment was the district of Porte de la Chapelle, the 21th April 1944.
641 people died and 377 where injuried.

Porte de la Chapelle district

http://www.amtuir.org/04_htu_metro_paris/cmp_1939_1949/images/10542_1944_04_22_cmp_pte_chapelle_entree_ratp.jpg

http://www.parisenimages.fr/Export450/3000/2210-2.jpg

http://www.parisenimages.fr/Export450/3000/2210-3.jpg

Porte de Cliglancourt

http://www.parisenimages.fr/Export450/21000/20133-9.jpg

Saint Ouen metro maintenance building.

http://www.amtuir.org/04_htu_metro_paris/cmp_1939_1949/images/10548_1944_04_22_cmp_ateliers_st_ouen_ratp.jpg

Even the historic central district were bombed

Marais
http://www.liberation-de-paris.gilles-primout.fr/images/ebombardement03.jpg

Rue de Rivoli
http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr///image/PagesAnnexes/Printemps_1918/ParisBombarde_5047.jpg

The majority of districts destroyed by bombardment were in suburbs.

http://dandylan.free.fr/photos/athismons/18avril05b.jpg

http://dandylan.free.fr/photos/athismons/18avril03b.jpg

[CGII]

fascinating. the slocum disaster in NYC was a fire, and the eastland disaster in chicago was an accidental rollover, but it is strange that both cities experienced such horrible tragedies with ships still in port within a decade of each other.

The Slocum was actually sailing when it caught fire and if I recall correctly the captain beached it on North Brother Island...

[muppet]

I had no idea Paris was bombed, and by both sides too.

I was recently shocked to learn Florence was bombed by the Allies, or that much you see in historic Vienna was rebuilt after similar carpet bombing.

In the east, Shanghai and Nanjing were also heavily bombed.

[Steely Dan]

The Slocum was actually sailing when it caught fire and if I recall correctly the captain beached it on North Brother Island...

ahh, got it. i skimmed the wiki article and it said the boat caught fire in the east river, so i assumed it was still in port at the time of the blaze, but upon further reading it was already underway when the fire occurred, as you pointed out.

either way, a horrible, horrible tragedy. the story of the life jackets being made with inferior materials and mothers placing them on their children only to watch them sink like rocks into the water was especially heart-wrenching.

[Wrightguy0]

Riots broke out between Irish Catholics and Irish protestants on two separate occasions once in 1847 and again in 1849 in the saint john neighborhood of york point. in 1849 a group of middle class protestants were celebrating the anniversary of a battle between protestants and Catholics back in Ireland that the protestants had won, the party decided to march through the city, gathering thongs of people as they went. When they came to the poorer neighborhood of york point the decided to antagonize the Catholics by tearing down an arch they had built across dock street, the residents came out to stop the large mob from desecrating their neighborhood, soon a drunken march had erupted into a full scale riot. people were throwing stones and debris into the crowd, someone even pulled out their gun and fired blindly, the mayor had to call in the militia to stop the riots. By the time it was over twelve people were dead dozens more were injured and the arch, a symbol of pride for the catholics, had been torn down. The protestants marched around for another five hours, even trying to return to york point again, before they were told to go home.

[rockyi]

Facinating thread. (BTW, I have heard of the Eastland tragedy. I read about it many years ago)

The only disaster around here that I can think of is the fire at Davenport's Mercy Hospital mental ward in January 1950. It took the lives of 39 patients and one nurse.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811722,00.html

[muppet]

the SS Princess Alice Disaster in 1865, when a Thames paddle steamer loaded with passengers was hit by an 890 ton barge in the night, with the loss of 600 lives:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1c/Princess_alice_collision_in_thames.jpg/800px-Princess_alice_collision_in_thames.jpg

[le calmar]

Montreal Great fires in 1721, 1734 and 1877 where a great part of the city was burnt (half of the city in 1721)

The Laurier Theater fire killed 77 children in 1927.

The Blue bird nightclub fire in 1972:
It was the Wagon Wheel night club above the Blue Bird café on Union street that burned. Three men were convicted of murder: Marc Boutin, Gilles Eccles and James O'Brian. 42 people died and about 40 people were seriously injured. The three men were drunk and were not allowed to enter the bar so they set fire to it.



Even though it was not in Montreal, the Empress of Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Empress_of_Ireland) sinking 1914 near Rimouski (further on the St-Lawrence river) killed 1012 persons.

[theWatusi]

Montgomery County's Great Train Wreck of 1856

An excursion train operated by the North Pennsylvania Railroad, known as the "Picnic Special," had been contracted by St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia's Kensington section to send their Sunday School children on a picnic in Shaeff's Woods, a sprawling grove near the railroad's Wissahickon station. July 17 was one of the hottest days of the year and the children looked forward to a full day at the park. The train, reported by The New York Times on July 18, 1856, as carrying 1,100 people (although there may have been as many as 1,500), was due to arrive in Wissahickon at 6:00 am. It left Cohocksink depot at Master Street and Germantown Avenue at 5:10 a.m., 23 minutes late, partly due to the large number of passengers aboard.

The train's locomotive was called Shakamaxon (in honor of Kensington's Native American name) and was operated by engineer Henry Harris. The engine, known for having low steam pressure, was under a sizable strain as it pulled between 10 and 12 cars overloaded with passengers. A priest, Daniel Sheridan, was in the lead car with the older children. The rear cars carried women and the younger children. The train had to make periodic stops to regain enough pressure to continue.

At the Wissahickon station another train, the Aramingo, engineered by William Vanstavoren, waited for the excursion to pass on the single track line that had opened one year and 15 days earlier. Shakamaxon was late, but the conductor did not use the telegraph to communicate with Cohocksink and had no idea when the excursion had left. There was a customary 15-minute waiting period for regularly scheduled trains, but the picnic special was an excursion train, which confused matters. At 6:15, the Aramingo, carrying 20 passengers from Gwynedd, pulled out of the station.

The engineer of Shakamaxon was confident he could make up for the time he had lost. He knew the Aramingo was due in the opposite direction on the same single track, but calculated they could use the siding at Edge Hill to safely pass each other. As he neared a blind curve just past Camp Hill Station, the train was travelling slightly downhill. Aramingo was rounding the same curve with the same blind spot. Although Harris blew the whistle almost continuously, the doppler effect was not widely understood at the time and, as a result, neither engineer knew exactly where the other was.

As they rounded the curve, they finally caught sight of one another. But it was too late. The trains collided at 6:18 a.m., between the Camp Hill station and the present-day crossing of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Trenton cut-off over the Bethlehem branch of the Reading Railroad.

The boilers made direct contact and the impact caused an explosion heard up to five miles away. The sounds of crashing woodwork, hissing steam, and the victims' screams and moans succeeded the first deafening noise of the explosion. The three forward cars of the picnic train were decimated and the subsequent derailed caused a fire to spread among the wooden cars. The initial impact did not kill most of the victims; rather most were caught in derailed cars that were on their sides, burning. The women and children who occupied the rear coaches, thereby escaping serious injury, jumped out, screaming in a frenzy of fear and grief.

A crowd gathered quickly from neighboring towns. The blaze could be seen for several miles and a man reportedly rode on horseback through the Montgomery County countryside and shouted to the residents: "Bring your camphor bottles, balsam and lint; there has been a horrible accident." But the heat of the burning wreckage was so intense that, even though protruding arms and legs and other parts of bodies could be glimpsed through the flame and smoke, it was impossible to get close enough to attempt a rescue.

The Sandy Run creek, a small brook, ran about 25 feet below the level of the tracks, meandering along the length of the train. A bucket brigade, equipped with tubs, buckets, pails, kettles, and other utensils, was formed down to the edge of the stream by the onlookers. But this effort availed little. The Congress Engine and Hose Company of Chestnut Hill finally reached the scene and, in fairly rapid order, subdued the flames and began to extricate the victims.

John Spencer of Camp Hill, an eyewitness who lived within sight of the collision, gave the following account at a coroner's investigation: "I was looking out of my shop window and saw the train approaching. I saw the down train first, just coming through the cut above Camp Hill station. It was slacking off as much as it could when it came through there. I had just time enough to turn around and saw the up train coming under the bridge at Camp Hill station. It was pretty smart. They were running about as they cleverly could. I heard the whistle on the train coming up before it reached the bridge... I could not see that the speed of the up train diminished between the time I first saw it and the time of the collision....eleven of the bodies of the dead were carried to my shop."

Mary Johnson Ambler, a Quaker woman who resided near the Wissahickon station, quickly gathered first-aid materials and covered the two-mile distance between her home and the disaster site on foot. The service she rendered in caring for the injured was so conspicuous that after her death in 1868, the North Pennsylvania Railroad changed the name of the station from Wissahickon to Ambler. Eventually, the town itself was named for Mrs. Ambler.

Meanwhile, the tragic news reached the city and spread through the parish. Men rushed from the factories, women ran sobbing through the streets. At Cohocksink station, they had to be restrained by police when they attempted to use the hand-cars. Coaches were attached to an idle locomotive at the station, but they were given over almost entirely to Sisters of Charity, nurses, and physicians.

The Daily Evening Bulletin reported: "the most horrible sight of all was that of the burning cars; in a few minutes after the collision, the fire spread rapidly through the broken remnants, burning and roasting to death many men, women and children. The groans and shouts of wounded and those held by the rescuers were of a character to appall the bravest heart."
Henry Harris, engineer of the picnic special, died in the accident as did Rev. Sheridan. The devastation was so extreme that many bodies were never found, and those that were so burned that they could not be identified.

The conductor of the Aramingo, William Vanstavoren, who escaped uninjured, apparently felt he was to blame for the accident. He returned to Philadelphia, officially reported the accident, and then went to his residence at 169 Buttonwood St. (near 10th St.) and committed suicide by taking arsenic. However, he was later absolved of any blame. A jury convicted the engineer of the Shackamaxon picnic special for his "gross carelessness".

Two days after the accident, the Pennsylvania Inquirer said, "The most eager interest is still shown in all that relates to the awful tragedy of Thursday."

The North Pennsylvania Railroad took steps after the accident to provide financial benefits for the injured and for survivors of the victims. They issued shares of stock to those who would accept it and gave money to those who would not. As it turned out, the shares eventually paid worthwhile dividends. The railroad closed down operations on the following Sunday to honor the victims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Wreck_of_1856

[the pope]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtabula_River_Railroad_Disaster


The Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster (also called the Ashtabula Horror) was a train disaster caused by bridge failure. It was the worst rail accident in American history when it occurred in far northeastern Ohio on December 29, 1876 at 7:28 p.m.

One or perhaps two of the bridge designers later committed suicide. The disaster helped focus efforts to draw up standards for bridges including adequate testing and inspection.

[CGII]

Here's another fun one for New York, more relevant to boats capsizing at dock:

The SS Normandie was a French cruise ship from the 1930s. As WWII heightened the need for war vessels, plans were drawn to convert the boat into an allied troop vessel, renamed the USS Lafayette. As the ship was undergoing conversion at Pier 88 on the West Side of Manhattan, sparks from a welder ignited flammable life vests and the ship caught fire. Water shot into the boat from responding fireboats caused the ship to list and ultimately capsize in its place. It was salvaged, but determined to be too expensive to continue any sort of restoration or conversion proposal, and was subsequently scrapped. There was no loss of life.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/07/SS-Normandie_side01_NYC.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Normandie_fire.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/NormandieNY.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/Normandielipsett.jpg

[jcchii]

chicago seem to collect these for some reason. Iroquois Theater a good one.

E2 nightclub is already being forgotten, because it was quickly overshadowed by the Rhode Island nightclub fire.

Also, only three people were killed, but almost no one recalls that a highspeed silver Zephyr train derailed at high speed in the suburb of Downers Grove in the 1940s and crashed into a train station there.

Chicago Heat Wave in 1995 killed several hundred in less than a week

[muppet]

yep, heatwaves. The Great European Heatwave killed no less than 52,000 in 2003. It is one of the world's most under-reported disasters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave

[bnk]

chicago seem to collect these for some reason. Iroquois Theater a good one.

E2 nightclub is already being forgotten, because it was quickly overshadowed by the Rhode Island nightclub fire.

Also, only three people were killed, but almost no one recalls that a highspeed silver Zephyr train derailed at high speed in the suburb of Downers Grove in the 1940s and crashed into a train station there.

Chicago Heat Wave in 1995 killed several hundred in less than a week

The Iroquois Theater disaster is a topic on itself too and I may cover it in more depth if I get the time.






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Heat_Wave_of_1995

1995 Chicago heat wave

...

[edit] Statistics
Chicago's daily low and high in 1995:

July 11: 73-90 °F (23-32 °C)
July 12: 76-98 °F (24-37 °C)
July 13: 81-106 °F (27-41 °C)
July 14: 84-102 °F (29-39 °C)
July 15: 77-99 °F (25-37 °C)
July 16: 76-94 °F (24-34 °C)
July 17: 73-89 °F (23-32 °C)

...

600 heat-related deaths in Chicago over a period of five days...



Aggravating factors

Impacts in the Chicago urban center were exacerbated by an urban heat island that raised nocturnal temperatures by more than 2 °C (3.60 °F).[9] Urban heat islands are caused by the concentration of buildings and pavement in urban areas, which tend to absorb more heat in the day and radiate less heat at night into their immediate surroundings than comparable rural sites. Therefore, built-up areas get hotter and stay hotter.

...





The real killer was the plus 80 F lows that took the weak over the edge.











yep, heatwaves. The Great European Heatwave killed no less than 52,000 in 2003. It is one of the world's most under-reported disasters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave

Wow 52K is almost hard to believe or grasp!

Looks like I remember France took the brunt.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Canicule_Europe_2003.jpg/708px-Canicule_Europe_2003.jpg

[hauntedheadnc]

Piedmont Airlines Flight 22

On July 19, 1967, a Piedmont Airlines 727 en route from Asheville Regional Airport to Roanoke collided with a Cessna and crashed next to a summer camp in Hendersonville, about 20 miles south of Asheville. 83 people were killed, including ten children, and John McNaughton, the newly-named secretary of the Navy. The main part of the fuselage missed the camp by about fifty yards.

This crash was an impetus toward installing radar at smaller commercial airports when at the time, only the larger ones had such technology. My mother remembers this disaster vividly and I used to work with a man who was one of the first responders from the Henderson County Sheriff's Department. Both of them told me some pretty ghoulish details -- there was one house where a flight attendant crashed through the roof and landed on the sofa with her legs crossed and her arms splayed as though she had kicked back to watch television. Cargo and plane parts and body parts rained down all over the east side of town. A crate of frozen shrimp landed by the pump at a gas station. There were tangles of guts in tree branches and a brain speared on a branch of a pine tree. People converged on the site and were cutting jewelry off of dead hands, and stealing wallets and purses. The guy I worked with caught one man trying to loot and hit him over the head with a shovel, knocking him out, then loaded him up in a body bag, and heard later that he woke up at the morgue set up at the National Guard armory.

Around 2002, the family that I worked for ended up building a hotel over the location where most of the debris landed, and we had guests complaining that the building was haunted almost immediately. They heard screaming. They asked us what those blue lights were floating around in the field next door. One woman got very upset and left after looking out her window and seeing nothing but flames on the other side of the glass. The Orkin man opened the door to a room and found a woman in 1960's clothing staring at him bug-eyed.

That kind of thing.

[steel]

The British burned Buffalo to the ground -War of 1812

[hammersklavier]

Wow, imagine if the Normandie survived...what a beaut!

I'm trying to think of that one British city where that one warship, the Mary Jane, I believe, sank dockside...

Of course, there was the MOVE bombing here a little before I was born...

[munda]

Haymarket Riot in Chicago
i highly doubt many people know about this outside chicagoland

took place on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket Square[4] in Chicago, and began as a rally in support of striking workers. An unknown person threw a bomb at police as they dispersed the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of eight police officers and an unknown number of civilians. In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were tried for murder. Four were put to death, and one committed suicide in prison. The bomber was never identified.
The Haymarket affair is generally considered to have been an important influence on the origin of international May Day observances for workers.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/HaymarketRiot-Harpers.jpg

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_Riot

[munda]

Our Lady of the Angels School fire again in Chicago
The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire broke out shortly before classes were to be dismissed on December 1, 1958, at the foot of a stairway in the Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago, Illinois. The elementary and middle school was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. A total of 92 pupils and 3 nuns lost their lives when smoke, heat, and fire cut off their normal means of escape through corridors and stairways. Many perished while jumping from second-floor windows (which were as high as a third floor would be on level ground). Another 100 were seriously injured.

The disaster was the lead headline story in American, Canadian, and European newspapers. Pope John XXIII sent his condolences from the Vatican in Rome. The severity of the fire shocked the nation and surprised educational administrators of both public and private schools. The disaster led to major improvements in standards for school design and fire safety codes.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_the_Angels_School_Fire

[harryc]

Of course, there was the MOVE bombing here a little before I was born...

You're making me feel real old here.

And Haymarket is widely know outside of the US, many from the former Soviet Union are shocked to find most Chicago residents have never heard of it.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_8TC_VUmf9Fw/SIKkNPQM_gI/AAAAAAAAs_4/egjwu-aHXzQ/s640/P1420305.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_8TC_VUmf9Fw/SIKkOmpy60I/AAAAAAAAtAI/JnvDvdNB2g8/s800/P1420309.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_8TC_VUmf9Fw/SIKkQRyju5I/AAAAAAAAtAU/0f3MsN8gpZ0/s720/P1420311.JPG

[johnnypd]

Newcastle & Gateshead fire of 1854:

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2494/newcastleandgatesheadgr.jpg

Started off on the Gateshead side of the river as a fairly innocuous fire on the evening of 12th October 1854, until the fire spread to the large Bertram's Warehouse. The seven-storey building had been opened a few years earlier to much fanfare, with the owner, Charles Bertram, claiming that the building was "Double fire-proofed" with metal pillars and other protection. As a result, it was used to store highly flammable materials - sulphur, nitrate of soda and other combustibles. It burned blue flames and large crowds gathered to watch what were called 'streams of fire' fall from the windows.

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8468/bertrams.jpg

As the fire reached its height a series of explosions, three small and one huge, blew apart the building. The final explosion was heard 20 miles away and debris from the blast was found almost a mile from the scene. It was due to this explosion that the fire jumped across the river and onto the Newcastle side. The crater at the site measured 50 feet deep and 40 feet across. This sketch of the fire was drawn during the conflagration from the pedestrian level of the High Level Bridge:

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8269/viewfromhighlevelbridge.jpg

53 people died, 500 were injured, 200 poor families were made homeless on the Gateshead side and unaccountable more in Newcastle, £500,000 worth of damage caused to property and hundreds of buildings destroyed. Over a mile of street frontage was destroyed. The Newcastle Quayside was later rebuilt by the architect John Dobson, whose 26 year old son Alexander died in the fire.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Newcastle_and_Gateshead_Great_Fire_1854_-_Bonded_warehouse_-_Bonded_warehouse_-_Illustrated_London_News.jpg

A pic of the rebuilt Quayside today with the Tyne Bridge in the background:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2341/2350652494_ba2427432f_b.jpg

[DBR96A]

Chicago: City of Death. :haha:

It's only a matter of time before the Sears Tower gets hit by an F5 tornado.

[Xelebes]

Edmonton:

Black Friday - a F4/F5 tornado storm strikes Edmonton's Refinery Row killing 27 people and injuring 300 people. Canada's deadliest tornado.

By Leslie from Wikipedia Source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edmonton_tornado.jpg)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Edmonton_tornado.jpg

Pretty much it.

[ThisSideofSteinway]

They don't cover Haymarket in schools anymore? We learned about it in 5th grade or so and that was only 15 years ago. That and the Triangle Factory Fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_fire) (linked for anyone who may not be familiar with it) were the big two tragedies to remember as far as lessons on labor history went.

[bucks native]

http://www.undergroundminers.com/oldknox.jpg

Photo: underground miners.com

At around 11:30 AM on January 22, 1959 the Susquehanna river broke throughout the thin rock roof of the River Slope Mine, Knox Coal Company. The hole was an estimated 150 feet in diameter, funneling in 10 million gallons of water and ice like a bathtub drain. By the afternoon plans to seal the breach were already in effect. One of the railroad tracks above were cut and bent towards the river. Over 50 Coal Hopper cars were pushed into the breach by a diesel locomotive from Pittston. Over 400 mine cars were dumped over the bank into the hole but the water just kept rushing right in. Thousands of bails of hay and hundreds of railroad ties were also added. Culm, dirt, and rock barely stopped the river. Finally they diverted the river around Wintermoot Island by building dams at both ends of the island. Once they pumped the water out between the dams the size of the hole was evident. Tons of clay and rock were poured into the hole and a concrete cap was placed on top of the opening. They then pumped much of the water out of the mine to look for the 12 missing miners. No bodies were ever recovered. How could this tragedy have happened? The original plan was to keep 50 feet of rock and coal between the workings and the river bottom. The Knox company wanted this to be lowered to 35 feet. Mine inspectors deemed this ok as it would be sufficient to stand up to the river. At this point the seam of coal sloped up towards the river in what is known as an anticline. Company owners kept pushing the miners closer and closer to the river bottom until the rock could no longer support the river. At the point where the river broke through the rock was only 5 to 6 feet thick! This disaster ended deep mining in the Wyoming valley as almost all of the coal company’s mines connected

[bucks native]

http://www.josephhaworth.com/images/Fellow%20Actors/Edwin%20Forrest/New%20York%20riots-Resized.jpg

Image credit: josephhaworth.com

http://www.matrix.msu.edu/~expa/expa/images/ExplorePAHistory-a0j9g4-a_349.jpg

Edwin Forrest as Spartacus, circa 1855

Credit: Courtesy of the Ekstrom Library,University of Louisville, Kentucky

http://www.matrix.msu.edu/~expa/expa/images/ExplorePAHistory-a0k0c5-a_349.jpg

Credit: Courtesy of Charles Hardy

The Philadelphia home of famed actor Edwin Forrest.

Current: Forrest Theater, Philadelphia

http://www.travelape.com/images/travel-pictures/raw/philadelphia/2082439.jpg

Photo credit: travelape


For decades, Forrest thrilled American audiences performing tragic heroes such as Othello and King Lear, and famous men who had struggled against oppression. In 1831, Forrest first starred as Spartacus in The Gladiator, a play by Philadelphia physician Robert Montgomery Bird (1806–54), one of the nation’s first celebrated playwrights.

Born in Philadelphia in 1806, Forrest left school at the age of thirteen to help support the family after the death of his father. Forrest was a great imitator. At eleven, he successfully convinced an audience at the South Street Theatre that he was a girl, and at fourteen, made his professional debut on stage at the Walnut Street Theatre.

His true theatrical education began in Albany in 1825, when he was hired to support the legendary English Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean, who was touring the United States. Impressed by Forrest’s raw talent, wild temperament, and rugged good looks, Kean took the American under his wing, casting him as Iago to his own Othello. Forrest, in turn, embraced Kean’s flamboyant stage style, filled with the florid orations and histrionics that meshed so well with Forrest’s own personality. A year later, Forrest was starring in New York’s most prestigious theater, the Park, as Othello, and was soon headlining at the lower-brow Bowery Theatre for an unheard of $200 a night. By 1829, he was back at the Park, now a wealthy man. Forrest used his newfound riches to seed American plays written by American playwrights, including one, The Gladiator, that provided him with one of his signature roles, Spartacus.

In 1834, Forrest took Spartacus to London’s Drury Lane Theatre. The first American to star on the London stage, he was a sensation. The distinguished actress Fanny Kemble dubbed him “a mountain of a man," and he was entertained royally by London’s theatrical lights, including William Macready, second only to Kean as Britain’s reigning thespian. Forrest remained in London for three years and there met and married his wife Catherine Norton Sinclair.

Back in New York, his performances set records, earning more than $4,000 in one three-night stint at the Park. In 1845, the Forrests returned to London, where his odd, tragic dance with Macready began. Appearing as MacBeth, he was booed ferociously one night. Forrest decided that the vain and temperamental Macready so resented his success that he had orchestrated the audiences’ insults. Several months later, when Macready was playing Hamlet in Edinburgh, Forrest returned the raspberry.

Three years later the actors’ feud exploded into deadly violence when Macready toured the United States as Macbeth. In the mid-1800s theater was a highly participatory activity. American audiences regularly interrupted performances, demanded that performers repeat their favorite songs or soliloquies, and loudly booed – or attacked – performers who displeased them. Americans took their theater very seriously, and were quick to take offense at insults to national pride. In May, 1849, Macready and Forrest were both playing in New York – Macready at the Astor Place Opera House and Forrest at the nearby Broadway Theatre. During Macready’s final performance, a mob of more than 1,000 gathered outside Astor Place and began stoning the theater. When the National Guard arrived to restore order, the rioting began in earnest. By the next morning, at least twenty-two lay dead, and as many as 150 were wounded.

In 1853, Forrest began building his great stone refuge in Philadelphia. He would return here between engagements – including his 1860 return to New York as Hamlet and an 1866 tour that took him to San Francisco; surrounded by its stone walls, he would, in the words of a contemporary, “brood upon himself as a great genius misunderstood, and the rest of the world as sort of animated scum." Forrest died in his house, alone, in 1872, willing that his estate – including the house – become a home for retired actors.

[LMich]

Our largest little known disaster in the Lansing area happened in the small village of Bath just outside of the city on May 18, 1927:


Bath School Disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster)

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bauerle/school3.jpg
The Bath School Disaster (http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bauerle/school3.jpg)

The Bath School disaster is the name given to three bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, USA, on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth grades (7-12 years of age) attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history. The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe, who was upset by a property tax that had been levied to fund the construction of the school building. He blamed the additional tax for financial hardships which led to foreclosure proceedings against his farm. These events apparently provoked Kehoe to plan his attack.

On the morning of May 18, Kehoe first killed his wife and then set his farm buildings on fire. As fire fighters arrived at the farm, an explosion devastated the north wing of the school building, killing many of the people inside. Kehoe used a detonator to ignite dynamite and hundreds of pounds of pyrotol which he had secretly planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers started gathering at the school, Kehoe drove up, stopped, and detonated a bomb inside his shrapnel-filled vehicle, killing himself and the school superintendent, and killing and injuring several others. During the rescue efforts, searchers discovered an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol planted throughout the basement of the school's south wing.

Andrew Kehoe:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/Tbsd-001.jpg
M.J. Ellsworth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tbsd-001.jpg)

His car bomb used to kill the school superintendent

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/Kehoe_car.jpg
public domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kehoe_car.jpg)

Cupola of the historic school used in the memorial park

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/38/Cupola2.jpg
James Daggy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cupola2.jpg)

His farm house before and after he set off firebombs to destroy his property, too

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Kahoe_House.jpg
public domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kahoe_House.jpg)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/Kahoe_House_remains-east.jpg
public domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kahoe_House_remains-east.jpg)

Kahoe's death 'note'

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Kahoe_sign.jpg
public domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kahoe_sign.jpg)

[bnk]

Our largest little known disaster in the Lansing area happened in the small village of Bath just outside of the city on May 18, 1927:



Jess that is crazy. I think the man that did this was crazy too.

I never heard about this before. Thanks for you contribution.



Also thanks for all of your pics. I know they can be a drag to bring up but they really help tell the real story.

Sometimes a photo can say more than words alone. Esp when these things happen a long time ago.

[bnk]

Ever wonder why exits are so clearly marked in theaters? Thank the people that perished in this fire for everyone else's safety. Those people did not die in vain I guess.





Chicago: City of Death. :haha:

It's only a matter of time before the Sears Tower gets hit by an F5 tornado.

We have had our shares of disasters in our short time as a city and the rest of our country and even the world has learned from our past losses.

But older cities world wide have also suffered over a longer time frame than Chicago has. See Muppets great history lesson on London for example.










http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_Theater_Fire

Iroquois Theater Fire


The Iroquois Theater Fire in Chicago, Illinois, within twenty minutes, claimed 571 lives on December 30, 1903.

By the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) records, it is still, as of January 2009, the deadliest single-building fire in U.S. history with the most fatalities, including those who died in the hospital, bringing the death count to a total of 602.

The New York City Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire claimed 148, and the Boston Cocoanut Grove fire totaled 492.[1]The 1876 Brooklyn Theater Disaster killed at least 276.

The Iroquois Theater, at 24-28 West Randolph Street, on the north side between State and Dearborn Streets, was advertised as "Absolutely Fireproof" on its playbills. Yet the construction and opening of the theater had been rushed in six months to take advantage of the holiday crowds with much being incomplete. The theatre opened on November 23 and burned 37 days later on December 30.

Versus the 1,724 seating capacity, nearly 2,000 patrons, mostly women and children on the holidays school break, were in attendance at this Wednesday matinée showing of the popular musical Mr. Bluebeard starring Eddie Foy and Annabelle Whitford and a performance troupe of 500.


Conflagration

At about 3:15 P.M., late in the second act, an arc light shorted and ignited a muslin curtain which then spread to the backdrops, high above the stage, where thousands of square feet of painted canvas scenery flats were hung. The backstage glow of the fire was mistaken by some in the audience as special effects. The 6 canisters of firefighting equipment on hand were ineffective, and the protective asbestos fire curtain between the stage and the audience could not be lowered at first as its operator was hospitalized that day and the substitute was not versed in its use. And then it failed to drop completely, sticking midway on its wooden rails as it caught on the pre-deployed trolley-wire for the flight of the fairy above the audience

Comedian Eddie Foy was hailed as a hero for attempting to calm the crowd. According to Foy, "It struck me as I looked out over the crowd during the first act that I had never before seen so many women and children in the audience. Even the gallery was full of mothers and children. Foy's role in this disaster is recreated by Bob Hope in the film The Seven Little Foys.

Still performing up to the point the fire went out of control, the actors and dancers fled through a huge double scenery backstage door, and the influx of near-zero Chicago chilled winter air fueled a huge fireball blowing past those on the main floor but incinerating those still in the gallery and the balcony 50 feet (15 m) away. The rooftop ventilation ductwork was still incomplete. However, when people opened doors and windows to aid their escape, air began to flow upwards out of the building, and the theater, with its 60-foot (18 m) high ceiling, became like a chimney and the flames spread.

According to the architect, Benjamin H. Marshall, the theater was replete with elegant marble and extra mahogany wood trim, and for aesthetics many of the fire exit doors in the auditorium were hidden behind curtains and were not marked.

As was the custom at the time, all of the doorways opened inwards,

but more importantly, the metal doors of the fire exits were equipped with bascule locks.

Bascule locks were used in European theaters but were virtually unknown to Americans and required the operation of a small lever. The few patrons who found the doors were unable to open the locks. One patron had a bascule lock in his home and was able to open one door, another was broken by brute force, and a third opened when patrons were trying to force it open and an explosive blast caused the door to finally give way.

Most of the lobby doors were locked. The balcony stairs were blocked by locked gates. Despite the holiday overcrowding, with over 200 patrons left standing in the aisles and behind the last row, the gates were still locked by custom during the show to prevent the balcony patrons from sneaking down to the more expensive seats.

Unfinished fire escapes of this six-story tall building prevented many people from escaping alive or without injury, over 100 bodies lay in the alleys after the fire, but their bodies ending up saving the lives of many as they cushioned the landing of those who were pushed or jumped. Because of the flames and heavy smoke, the attending firefighters and many of the jumpers were unable to make good use of the safety nets.

Students from the Northwestern University building across from one alley tried bridging the gap with a ladder and then with some boards between the rooftops, saving those few able to manage the makeshift cross over.


Aftermath

Corpses were piled 10 bodies or 7 feet (2.1 m) high, around the doors and windows, having clambered over each other only to succumb to the flames, smoke and gases; 575 people died that day, and hundreds were hurt.

Another 30 would die from their injuries in the following weeks. Many of the victims were buried in Montrose, Forest Home and Graceland cemeteries.

Of the 300 or so actors, dancers, and stagehands, only an aerialist (Nellie Reed), an actor in a bit part, an usher, and two female attendants died. The aerialist's role was as a fairy. She was to fly out over the audience on a trolley wire, showering them with pink carnations. She was trapped above the stage while waiting for her entrance, and though rescued, died of her burns a couple of days later.

In New York City on New Year's Eve some theatres eliminated standing room.

Building and fire codes were subsequently reformed, theatres were closed for retrofitting all around the country and in some cities in Europe. All theater exits had to be clearly marked and the doors rigged so that, even if they could not be pulled open from the outside, they could be pushed open from the inside.

After the fire, it was revealed that fire inspectors had been bribed with free tickets to overlook code violations. Accusations began to appear that the asbestos curtain was not asbestos. The curtain had disappeared, which meant it was either viewed as incriminating evidence and removed or had burned, in which case it could not have been asbestos, which does not burn. Regardless, the mayor ordered all theaters in Chicago closed for a week after the fire.

As a result of public outrage, many were charged with crimes, including Mayor Carter Harrison, Jr., some with involuntary manslaughter.

But most charges were dismissed three years later because of the delaying tactics of the owners' lawyers and their use of loopholes and inadequacies in the city's building and safety ordinances. The only person convicted was a tavern keeper charged with robbing the dead. By 1907, 30 families of the victims were financially compensated for their loss, receiving a settlement of $750 each.

The exterior of the Iroquois was largely intact and reopened as the Colonial Theater, which was torn down in 1926 to make way for the Oriental Theater.


Memorial

A bronze bas-relief memorial by sculptor Lorado Taft sits without any identifying markings inside the LaSalle Street entrance to City Hall.

Chicago used to hold an annual service at City Hall while there were any people who were involved in the tragedy still alive.



A result from the Iroquois fire was the development of the first panic exit device by the Von Duprin exit device company, now a part of Ingersoll Rand. Panic exit devices are now required by building codes for high-occupancy spaces.




http://vonduprin.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/fire_iroquistheatre.jpghttp://vonduprin.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/fire_iroquistheatre.jpg

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2008-08/41632153.jpghttp://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2008-08/41632153.jpg






www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-iroquoisfire-story,0,6395565.story


December 30, 1903


The Iroquois Theater fire

A fire during a holiday matinee kills hundreds and leads to tougher safety standards nationwide.

By Bob Secter


A safety standard for theaters and public buildings rises from the ashes of the Iroquois Theater, where more than 600 people were killed.

School was out for Christmas, so the Wednesday matinee performance of "Mr. Blue Beard," a musical starring funnyman Eddie Foy, overflowed with a standing-room audience of nearly 2,000 people, mostly women and children, at the 5-week-old Iroquois Theater.The richly appointed amusement palace on the north side of Randolph Street between State and Dearborn Streets was said to be fireproof. It would prove as unburnable as the Titanic would prove unsinkable nine years later.

In the second act, as the orchestra swung into a dreamy waltz called "Let Us Swear by the Pale Moonlight," an arc light on the left side of the stage sputtered and ignited a strip of paint-saturated muslin on a drape. Unnoticed at first by the audience, the flame ran up the strip and into the fly space above the stage where scenery hung.

Suddenly, blazing fabric rained down on the stage. The singers raced off, one with a costume on fire, and the audience began to bolt. Foy then ran onstage, raised his hands and tried to calm the crowd.

For a moment, the panic eased. But the draft from an open stage door fed the flames. A fireball leaped across the footlights and engulfed a velvet curtain. Stagehands tried to lower the asbestos curtain to keep the blaze from spreading to the seats, but it stuck a few feet above the stage floor. Then part of the stage collapsed, and the lights went out.

That touched off a stampede for the 27 exits, some of which were hidden by drapes; others were locked to foil gate-crashers. Bodies slammed into bodies. Within minutes, tangles of corpses were piled 7 feet high as the living groped for an escape route over the dead, only to succumb themselves to gas, smoke and flames.

By the time firefighters fought their way inside, an eerie silence had fallen over the charred and darkened remains of the theater.

"Is there any living person here?" one fire marshal shouted over and over. "If anyone is alive in here, groan or make a sound." No one did.

Some 575 people died that day, and hundreds were hurt. Another 30 would die from their injuries in the following weeks. The theater's managers and several public officials were indicted in connection with the fire, but none was ever punished.

The tragedy also spurred a drastic toughening of safety standards for theaters and other public buildings, and the rules became a benchmark for the nation. Henceforth, all theater exits had to be clearly marked and the doors rigged so that, even if they could not be pulled open from the outside, they could be pushed open from the inside.







CITY WOMAN RECALLS HORRORS OF IROQUOIS THEATER FIRE

by John Scotzin, Evening News Staff Writer

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania




She Danced With Chorus 50 Years Ago

Today is one of heart-chilling reminder for Mrs. Terry Jones, of 503 N. Front St.

It was exactly 50 years ago - December 30, 1903 - that she fled for her life from the stage of the Iroquois Theater in Chicago as it was transformed within a brief half-hour into a charred oven piled high with 596 dead, mostly women and children.

Fifty years ago this afternoon Mrs. Jones was Madeleine Dupont, one of eight dashing chorus girls who with eight young blades in showy costume strolled through the measures of the popular song of the day, "The Pale Moonlight."

The horror of the death-dealing fire and panic that broke out as her chorus danced is still recalled vividly by Mrs. Jones, whose husband, a traffic coordinator with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, was a featured comedian in his younger days.

A holiday matinee crowd of 2,000 had packed the handsome new Iroquois theater for the scenic extravaganza "Mr. Bluebeard." "Bring the Children," urged advertisements throughout Chicago and the youngsters were there in force in the midst of the holiday season. A double treat eagerly awaited by the excited children was the clowning of Eddie Foy, leading comedian of the times.

The auditorium and stage were darkened for the "Pale Moonlight" number. Up in the scenes an electrician was busy with the arc light that bathed the stage in a moonlight effect.

FLAMES DEVOUR SCENERY

There was a startled cry as a tiny tongue of flame crept over the inside of the grand drapery... a spark from the spotlight... then flames devouring the flimsy scenery.

Foy bravely stood on the stage and entreated the alarmed audience to remain calm. His voice was drowned out as prop ropes burned through, dropping tons of scenery on the now-deserted stage. The vaunted asbestos curtain was dropped but it stuck midway down. A door left open in the rear by fleeing performers created a draft, which swept the mass of flame out over the auditorium.

Before it the vast throng broke and fled in frenzied panic. Newspaper reports described the struggle of men, women and children toward the jammed exits as beyond the wildest imaginations of Dante in his visions of Inferno.

EVERY RULE VIOLATED

Practically every fire rule in the book had been violated, it developed in the investigative aftermath. The coroner's jury found non-compliance with building ordinances regulating fire alarm boxes, fire apparatus, damper or flues on and over the stage and fly galleries. Firemen responding to a delayed alarm because there was no firebox in front of the theater strung their hose lines over layers of bodies which were 10 feet deep in some places.

The public was appalled at evidence showing that most of the 30 exits were bolted, barred, or padlocked shut. Stage flues had been covered with heavy timbers, nailed down. There were no lights over exits nor conspicuous exit signs. The theater's lighting system failed when fire burned through wires which should have been encased in fire-resistant coverings.

Madeleine Dupont and the others of the octette told the coroner how they sang and danced in trying to prevent panic.

The transcript of her testimony:

"I first saw just a little bit of flame, which was on the right hand side of the first entrance on the west, the first drop of the curtain. It was just above the lamp that was reflecting on the moon light girls. It was a calcium light. I went back and got in my place with the pale moonlight girls and the boys came out and sang their lines. Then we eight girls went on the stage - as we always did - went down to the front of the stage - and going down stage I saw the flames getting larger... We sang one verse of "The Pale Moonlight" song and then Mr. Foy came out and spoke to the audience."

"What he said I don't know, and then Miss Williams fainted. She was one of the 'Pale Moonlight' girls and stood alongside of me. She was taken out, and then Miss Lawrence and myself were the last girls to leave the stage."

"I went downstairs to notify the girls down in the basement in the dressing rooms. I called to them that there was a fire, and advised them to run for their lives. Nobody was coming up then. Then I went out of the regular stage door entrance."


In the shock of the calamity, theaters throughout the country and in Europe closed their doors for inspection of their fire precautions. A crusade against violation of fire ordinances developed in every large city.

The result was a rigid overhaul of fire regulations for theaters, as well as hotels and all other public gathering places. Today's steel fire curtains, broad aisles, better floor pitch, lighted exits and uniformed attendants before exits are an outgrowth of the Iroquois theater fire.

http://www.eastlandmemorial.org/img/iroquois/md_1.jpg

GRIM MEMORIES - Mrs. Terry Jones of Harrisburg looks at newspaper clippings and record book describing the great Iroquois theater fire which occurred 50 years ago today. A member of the cast, she was among the last to leave the flaming stage.




http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/6232/iroquoistheater.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/6232/iroquoistheater.jpg

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http://farm1.static.flickr.com/197/475053099_8eb10e50f8.jpg?v=0
William McLaughlin was a alumni of Ohio Weslean University and was in Chicago for his cousin's wedding. He had traveled to Chicago from Buenos Aries, where he was living. He helped people out of the theater and was severely burned, He was taken to the makeshift hospital at Thompson's Restaurant next door to the Iroquois where he lost consciousness, he died lat 9:30 PM at Presbyterian Hospital. The wedding, planned for New Year's Eve, was postponned, as was everything else in Chicago.

You may notice in Chicago that all public doors open outward. This is because the doors at the iroquois opened inward, people piled up in the aisles trying to escape.



http://pro.corbis.com/images/BE056430.jpg?size=67&uid=%7B28833F8A-70B0-4B63-BBB2-772BA1C64DC4%7D
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2008-08/41632154.jpg
http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2008-08/41632154.jpg

http://www.inficad.com/~ksup/img/iroquois/lobby.jpg
http://www.inficad.com/~ksup/img/iroquois/lobby.jpg

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https://bienen.sesp.northwestern.edu/images_fk/site/i34981aathmb.jpg

[bnk]

Oh where oh where have our Boston fourmers gone?




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster




Boston Molasses Disaster

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/BostonMolassesDisaster.jpg/754px-BostonMolassesDisaster.jpg
Aftermath of the disaster



The Boston Molasses Disaster, also known as the Great Molasses Flood and the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy, occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. A large molasses tank burst and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event has entered local folklore, and residents claim that on hot summer days the area still smells of molasses.[1]


Disaster

The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company facility on January 15, 1919, an unusually warm day.

At the time, molasses was the standard sweetener in the United States.


Molasses can also be fermented to produce rum and ethyl alcohol, the active ingredient in other alcoholic beverages and a key component in the manufacturing of munitions at the time. The stored molasses was awaiting transfer to the Purity plant situated between Willow Street and what is now named Evereteze Way in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Near Keany Square,[3] at 529 Commercial Street, a huge molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L) collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed there was a loud rumbling sound like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.

The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 to 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h) and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa).[5] The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet. As described by author Stephen Puleo,

Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Here and there struggled a form — whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was... Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings — men and women — suffered likewise.

The Boston Globe reported that people "were picked up by a rush of air and hurled many feet." Others had debris hurled at them from the rush of sweet-smelling air. A truck was picked up and hurled into Boston Harbor.

Approximately 150 were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed — some were crushed and drowned by the molasses. The wounded included people, horses, and dogs; coughing fits became one of the most common ailments after the initial blast.

Anthony di Stasio, walking homeward with his sisters from the Michelangelo School, was picked up by the wave and carried, tumbling on its crest, almost as though he were surfing. Then he grounded and the molasses rolled him like a pebble as the wave diminished. He heard his mother call his name and couldn't answer, his throat was so clogged with the smothering goo. He passed out, then opened his eyes to find three of his sisters staring at him.






Aftermath

First to the scene were 116 cadets under the direction of Lieutenant Commander H. J. Copeland from USS Nantucket, a training ship of the Massachusetts Nautical School, that was docked nearby at the playground pier.[3] They ran several blocks toward the accident. They worked to keep the curious from getting in the way of the rescuers while others entered into the knee-deep sticky mess to pull out the survivors. Soon the Boston police, Red Cross, Army and other Navy personnel arrived. Some nurses from the Red Cross dove into the molasses while others tended to the wounded, keeping them warm as well as keeping the exhausted workers fed. Many of these people worked through the night. The injured were so numerous that doctors and surgeons set up a makeshift hospital in a nearby building. Rescuers found it difficult to make their way through the syrup to help the victims. It took four days before they stopped searching for victims; many dead were so glazed over in molasses, they were hard to recognize. Two who were found on the fourth day could not be identified.


Cleanup

It took over 87,000 man hours to remove the molasses from the cobblestone streets, theaters, businesses, automobiles, and homes.

The harbor was still brown with molasses until summer. Local residents brought a class-action lawsuit, one of the first held in Massachusetts, against the United States Industrial Alcohol Company (USIA) which had bought Purity Distilling in 1917. In spite of the company's attempts to claim that the tank had been blown up by anarchists (because some of the alcohol produced was to be used in making munitions), a court-appointed auditor found USIA responsible after three years of hearings. USIA ultimately paid out $600,000 in out-of-court settlements (at least $6.6 million in 2005 dollars).[8]

United States Industrial Alcohol did not rebuild the tank. The property became a yard for the Boston Elevated Railway (predecessor to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) and is currently the site of a city-owned baseball field.


Causes


Several factors that occurred on that day and the previous days may have contributed to the disaster. The tank was poorly constructed and insufficiently tested. Due to fermentation occurring within the tank, carbon dioxide production may have raised the internal pressure. The rise in the local temperatures that occurred over the previous day also would have assisted in the building of this pressure. Records show that the air temperature rose from 2°F to 41°F (from −17°C to 5°C) over that period. The failure occurred from a manhole cover near the base of the tank, and it is possible that a fatigue crack there grew to the point of criticality. The hoop stress is greatest near the base of a filled, cylindrical tank. The tank had only been filled to capacity eight times since it was built a few years previously, putting the walls under an intermittent cyclical load.

An inquiry after the disaster revealed that Arthur Jell, who oversaw the construction, neglected basic safety tests, such as filling the tank with water to check for leaks. When filled with molasses, the tank leaked so badly that it was painted brown to hide the leaks. Local residents collected leaked molasses for their homes

An urban legend claims that the doomed tank may have been overfilled in late 1918 so that the owners could produce as much rum as possible before Prohibition came into effect. However, Purity Distilling did not make rum, but rather specialized which was exempted from the state prohibition laws in effect in 1919 and would later be exempted from the Volstead Act and other national Prohibition laws.




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https://healeylibrary.wikispaces.com/file/view/molasses.jpg










I wanted to make a Boston Baked Bean joke here but I did not think it was appropriate for the occasion and would not represent the dignity that this thread deserves.















.

[seaskyfan]

^ "Dark Tide" is great. I just read it recently.

[lawsond]

The Halifax Explosion was an incredible and singular event - the largest man made explosion before the atomic bomb.
No area of the city was unscathed but the north end was obliterated in the same fashion as Hiroshima.

These photos are of neighbourhoods with stores, homes, churches, trees and factories. They were not only flattened but pulverized.

http://home.thezone.net/~scuba/images/Halifax75.jpg

http://home.thezone.net/~scuba/images/Halifax75.jpg

http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/ap/c/c019951.jpg

http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/ap/c/c019951.jpg

trying to find remains...not survivors

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/imagesns/binaries/DHPK43489-DEV01514.jpg

this was a city street

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[xzmattzx]

Our largest little known disaster in the Lansing area happened in the small village of Bath just outside of the city on May 18, 1927:

Still the dealiest school "rampage" in the U.S., even more than any singular school shooting.

[bnk]

The Halifax Explosion was an incredible and singular event - the largest man made explosion before the atomic bomb.
No area of the city was unscathed but the north end was obliterated in the same fashion as Hiroshima.

These photos are of neighbourhoods with stores, homes, churches, trees and factories. They were not only flattened but pulverized.

http://home.thezone.net/~scuba/images/Halifax75.jpg

http://home.thezone.net/~scuba/images/Halifax75.jpg

http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/ap/c/c019951.jpg

http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/ap/c/c019951.jpg

trying to find remains...not survivors

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/imagesns/binaries/DHPK43489-DEV01514.jpg

this was a city street

http://bp3.blogger.com/_RFKacIRtQXo/R1WDm8pRn6I/AAAAAAAAAfM/ipfF1giChWg/s1600-h/05.jpg

http://bp3.blogger.com/_RFKacIRtQXo/R1WDm8pRn6I/AAAAAAAAAfM/ipfF1giChWg/s1600-h/05.jpg


Thanks for the pics for this was sic

Give us a link as to why this was so destructive and almost an atomic bomb size of a blast.

I have Canadian relatives that will never forget about the Halifax disaster.

Help and tell us how and why it happened.

thanks in advance.

bnk

[hauntedheadnc]

Thanks for the pics for this was sic

Give us a link as to why this was so destructive and almost an atomic bomb size of a blast.

I have Canadian relatives that will never forget about the Halifax disaster.

Help and tell us how and why it happened.

thanks in advance.

bnk

Two ships, the French Mont-Blanc and the Norwegian Imo collided in Halifax Harbour and the Mont-Blanc, loaded with munitions bound for use in World War I, blew up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

[rockyi]

I read a book on the Halifax explosion that I purchased there when I was visiting in '94. It's called "The Town That Died" by Michael J. Bird. Quite a horrifying event

[Via Chicago]

Our Lady of the Angels School fire again in Chicago
The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire broke out shortly before classes were to be dismissed on December 1, 1958, at the foot of a stairway in the Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago, Illinois. The elementary and middle school was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. A total of 92 pupils and 3 nuns lost their lives when smoke, heat, and fire cut off their normal means of escape through corridors and stairways. Many perished while jumping from second-floor windows (which were as high as a third floor would be on level ground). Another 100 were seriously injured.

The disaster was the lead headline story in American, Canadian, and European newspapers. Pope John XXIII sent his condolences from the Vatican in Rome. The severity of the fire shocked the nation and surprised educational administrators of both public and private schools. The disaster led to major improvements in standards for school design and fire safety codes.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_the_Angels_School_Fire

Yup, thats a real sad one. But at least some good came out of it. Within a year, safety improvements were made in 16,500 U.S. school buildings. Fire doors that shut off stairwells became required in school buildings, as were smoke detectors, sprinkler systems, alarm systems and other safety measures. As a direct result of this loss of life, fire prevention week, fire drills, and other fire awareness continue to exist in schools to this day.

http://www.dean-team.com/photos/chicago_homes_for_sale_by_deans_team/images/392832/425x340.aspx
http://www.dean-team.com/photos/chicago_homes_for_sale_by_deans_team/images/392832/425x340.aspx

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2008-11/43609694.jpg

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http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/51087/thumbs/s-OUR-LADY-FIRE-large.jpg
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