Gone at 3:17

Author: David M Brown and Michael Wereschagin
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Potomac Books, 2012
Pages: 328
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: At 3:17 p.m. on March 18, 1937, a natural gas leak beneath the London Junior-Senior High School in the oil boomtown of New London, Texas, created a lethal mixture of gas and oxygen in the school’s basement. The odorless, colorless gas went undetected until the flip of an electrical switch triggered a colossal blast. The two-story school, one of the nation’s most modern, disintegrated, burying everyone under a vast pile of rubble and debris. More than 300 students and teachers were killed, and hundreds more were injured.

As the seventy-fifth anniversary of the catastrophe approaches, it remains the deadliest school disaster in U.S. history. Few, however, know of this historic tragedy, and no book, until now, has chronicled the explosion, its cause, its victims, and the aftermath.

Gone at 3:17 is a true story of what can happen when school officials make bad decisions. To save money on heating the school building, the trustees had authorized workers to tap into a pipeline carrying “waste” natural gas produced by a gasoline refinery. The explosion led to laws that now require gas companies to add the familiar pungent odor. The knowledge that the tragedy could have been prevented added immeasurably to the heartbreak experienced by the survivors and the victims’ families. The town would never be the same.

Using interviews, testimony from survivors, and archival newspaper files, Gone at 3:17 puts readers inside the shop class to witness the spark that ignited the gas. Many of those interviewed during twenty years of research are no longer living, but their acts of heroism and stories of survival live on in this meticulously documented and extensively illustrated book.

Review: Impossible to put down, even when I wanted to. So much death and destruction. Haunting is an apt description. The authors have created a masterpiece of pay tribute to both the victims and the survivors.

Tinder Box

Author: Anthony P. Hatch

Genre: Non-fiction

Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2003

Pages: 240

Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: This is the one-hundredth anniversary year of the worst single building fire and the most horrible theater disaster in US history.At a Christmas week matinee December 30, 1903, more than 600 people, mostly women and children, perished in less than 30 minutes in a five-week-old theater that was advertised as being "Absolutely Fireproof" and one of the most luxurious playhouses ever built in America—the epitome of Twentieth Century luxury, comfort and safety. Rushed to completion because of corporate greed, the Iroquois opened in Chicago's Loop without exit signs, firefighting equipment, sprinkler system, fire alarm, telephone, a completed ventilation system and exterior fire escapes because city building inspectors had been paid off in free tickets and fire department and other officials looked the other way. Published warnings went unheeded. When fire broke out from a short circuit in a backstage spotlight, the panicked audience found itself locked in by untrained ushers and though leading comedian Eddy Foy begged for calm, people trampled one another in a mad dash to escape and piled up at exit doors that, even when broken open, swung in rather than out. Hundreds jumped or were pushed from the incomplete fire escapes into what became known as "Death Alley." The disaster, which for 1903 had the impact that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, stunned the world, closed theaters and ultimately resulted in fundamental changes in building and safety codes now taken for granted, such as illuminated exits signs, panic bars, doors that swing out, not in and fire retardant materials. However, questions remain as to whether today's theaters and movie houses are any safer in a panic situation, and some fire experts interviewed by the author say that another Iroquois disaster could again occur.

Review: This book caught my attention because in October 2012 a group of friends and I took a haunted ghost tour of Chicago. What had been the Iroquois Theatre was the first stop and we were able to get off the bus and walk into the alley behind the theater where so many had died more than 100 years ago. I didn't experience anything unusual, but there were orbs in many of the group's pictures.

This book itself was a grisly, but fascinating read. 

Dark Tide

Author: Stephen Puleo
Genre: History, Non-fiction
Publisher: Beacon, 2004
Pages: 280
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters was playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window-"Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!"

A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour. It demolished wooden homes, even the brick fire station. The number of dead wasn't known for days. It would be years before a landmark court battle determined who was responsible for the disaster.

Review: This was an excellent read. I cannot wait to visit Boston again and see the North End where this happened. Not only does the author describe the flood in great detail, he covers the politics and economics of the time as well.

History lovers will find this interesting.

A Journal for Christa

Author: Grace George Corrigan
Genre: Biography
Publisher: 1993
Pages: 215
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Most people remember where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, just as they remember how they felt when humans first set foot on the moon. Elements of both reactions are present in the story of Christa McAuliffe, the energetic young schoolteacher chosen to be the first civilian to go into space—and who died with her astronaut companions in the Challenger explosion of January 28, 1986.

In this straightforward memoir, McAuliffe's mother, Grace George Corrigan, makes it very clear just who and what the nation lost in the Challenger tragedy. The product of family history, notes and letters, and the commemorative efforts to honor her daughter,  A Journal for Christa provides a very personal biography of a remarkable young woman.

Christa McAuliffe's story is solidly American—the eldest child of a close Catholic Massachusetts family, and a dedicated Girl Scout, she came of age in the turbulent sixties and early seventies and became a schoolteacher and mother. Generous, outgoing, funny, and beloved by her many friends and students, she was little known beyond her personal circle until selected by NASA to be the first civilian sent on a space mission as the "Teacher in Space." Whether or not the selection was a publicity stunt,, Christa McAuliffe may have proved more than NASA bargained for. Honest, direct, and outspoken, she was impatient with the stultifying ceremonies of the government bureaucracy and did not hesitate to speak out on behalf of the constituency she felt she had been selected to represent: American public schoolteachers and the children in their classrooms.

Review: Only a mother would write a book that spoke of someone in such glowing terms. I would have loved to read something that delved a little deeper into the Challenger tragedy, but after starting the book I realized that was not its intended purpose. It's an interesting read with personal photographs included. There's a picture of Christa sitting with her son and holding her daughter just before she boarded the Challenger. It moved me to tears. Any mom will understand the poignancy of that image.

Christa came from a privileged family, and it was an "of course SHE was chosen as the teacher in space" reaction that I had while reading. It was a natural next step in her life. She had opportunities come her way, and she was a go-getter. 

Overall, this book annoyed me, but I tried to remember that this was her mother writing about a child she tragically lost. However, I finished it angry at Christa for pursuing such a frivolous and dangerous endeavor, and try as I might to ignore them, two words kept entering my consciousness as I read - hubris and selfish.

City on Fire

                 ~ February's theme is books about American disasters ~

Author: Bill Minutaglio
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: 2003
Pages: 304
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: The Texas City Disaster was the greatest industrial disaster in American history - and the greatest man-made disaster in 20th Century America. It is also one of the most profoundly hidden and misunderstood moments in this nation's history. No one knows exactly how many people died on an otherwise peaceful day in April 1947 along the prospering waterfront of Texas City. The official account put the number close to 600, but some believe it could have been as many as 700 or 800 or even 1,000. Some other things were very clear: as many as 5,000 people were injured, the explosion registered on Richter scales in Colorado and set off tremors in Louisiana. Planes were shot out o the sky, ocean-going vessels were hurled into the air, railroad cars were tossed like toys - and it instantly was the costliest, deadliest industrial disaster in America. The FBI launched a massive investigation, the Army occupied the city, foreign nations sent aid, the largest insurance claims in history were filed - and then, the innocent people of this small, all-American city in Texas slowly came to believe their own government had caused the disaster. . .that their own government, which they dearly loved, had blood on its hands. Told in narrative fashion, City on Fire outlines the heroes who emerged before and after this deadliest of disasters - and how they battled racism, corruption and, finally, their own elected officials, in order to extract some justice for the doomed families in this once-normal American city. Praised by the Washington Post and many other publications, City on Fire was described as one of the greatest tales of survival ever written by Esquire - and compared to the works of Ernest Hemingway. It has been called "epic" by The Austin American-Statesman. The Texas Observer said it was one of the finest books ever written about Texas. 

Review: After a slow start this book picked up pace and I felt drawn into the disaster in Texas City. I cannot believe that a disaster of this magnitude and one so recent is now a forgotten piece of history. Fortunately safety regulations are now in place in an attempt to avoid such a disaster again, but unfortunately safety was not a priority in 1947.

This book received excellent reviews by those had lived through it, and by those who are direct descendants of the survivors and grew up listening to stories about it.