Lately, it seems, there have been several buildings exploding because of natural gas. There was the home in Flint, Michigan, that blew up with such force, the blast was felt for miles away. Also, another occurred in the Bronx, NY, when an apartment building exploded and caught fire. Another apartment building in Washington, D.C. A home in Dallas. And on. It seems like every couple of weeks, another building is detonated and blown to smithereens by natural gas.
Remarkably, with most of these, no one has gotten hurt. However, I know for sure one person died in the New York explosion. Regardless, one minute the home is there, and the next, it is a shamble of smoking sticks on the ground.
Personally, I hate pilot lights. I don’t like to light them, and it bothers me that they stay lit, burning a steady stream of gas all the time.
It is stories like I mentioned that make me apprehensive. But, perhaps none of them is worse than the one that happened on this date, March 18, 1937. It was then that a natural gas explosion killed nearly 300 students at a Texas school.
All those lives forever changed.
It happened at the Consolidated School of New London, Texas. Unfortunately, that school sat right in the middle of a large oil and natural gas field. Is it any surprise, really? This particular area was dominated by 10,000 oil derricks. And, it just so happened that eleven of those stood right on school grounds. I wonder if the noise was distracting with all that thumping and thrumming?
It was a new school built just a couple of years before. The cost was pretty significant, at one million dollars, for 1937. Not only that, they bought natural gas from Union Gas for all their energy needs. As such, the school’s gas bill averaged about $300 a month — a large chunk of change.
So, the school officials were persuaded to save money by tapping into wet-gas lines. What the heck is wet-gas, I asked. It is a type of waste gas that is less stable and has more impurities than typical natural gas. It seems many people used it back then, especially for consumers living near oil fields. Less stable, but cheaper.
As it went, at 3:05 p.m. on March 18, a Thursday afternoon, the 694 students and 40 teachers in attendance at the Consolidated School were nearing the end of their school day. Most of them were probably itching to get out, for the final bell was about to ring in 10 minutes.
But. It happened. Instead of running through the front door, joyfully, toward their homes, an incredible explosion occurred and put a stop to all of it. The blast was so powerful that it literally blew the roof off the building and leveled the entire school. There was no warning. No signs. Back then, natural gas had no smell.
The massive blast was felt by people 40 miles away and killed most victims instantly. Of course, people rushed to the scene, trying to help. They were able to pull out many survivors. In fact, hundreds of injured students were hauled from the rubble.
Here’s a thing. In the rubble, a blackboard was found. It read: “Oil and natural gas are East Texas’ greatest natural gifts. Without them, this school would not be here and none of us would be learning our lessons.”
And so it goes.
The exact cause of the spark that ignited the gas was never found.
Three hundred died that day.
Now, imagine that, over and over again. Instead, though, you know it is coming. You just don’t know where or when.
That is Ukraine.
But we know the cause.
The tragedy is astounding, and my heart aches for them.
With every moment.
Sending money never feels like enough.
Instead, I wish I could help their lives become normal again.
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“I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”
― Samuel Beckett
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“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown
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“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
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There is nothing natural about it, in the end.
