How Many Disasters Do We Need?
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
Over the years, we in the fire protection and suppression fields have gained a great deal of knowledge-as to the overall value of fire and disaster prevention and the tremendous role it must play in our fire protection profession. Through the use of this knowledge, we have produced a myriad of laws, codes and directives, covering most, if not all, of our fire prevention related problems.
The unfortunate aspect is that most of these lessons have grown from disastrous life and property losses: the Iroquois Theater fire; the Coconut Grove fire; the Triangle Shirtwaist fire; and, recently, major legislation has followed in the wake of both the Blue Angel Cabaret and the Beverly Hills Supper Club fires. All gave us valuable lessons by which to live safer amid the dust of debris and the horror of death.
But now, we have our lessons and we have reinforced the value of our prevention efforts many times over. By the public awareness and enforcement procedures of these protective/preventive legislations, we have provided a reasonable degree of safety in places that manufacture and store special and dangerous hazards.
Unfortunately, the average citizen seems confident that state and local governments and, even more important, the local fire and safety departments have provided that degree of safety in all occupancies.
It seems then, in the face of all this, we should never relax our guard. Why then such an occurrence as Grucci’s Fireworks explosion and disaster?
In late November, a world-renown fireworks manufacturing complex in New York exploded suddenly. Unfortunately, two lives were lost and hundreds of homes were extensively damaged. An accidental detonation caused a chain reaction that oxidized thousands of pounds of explosives and chemicals. Four tremendous explosions rocked many square miles. Fire departments had relatively little information on what was stored or mixed in the fireworks complex, and they did not know what was contained in the smoke clouds and residue that surrounded Bellport, N.Y. The permit on file for the manufacturing plant only listed “explosives” as the storage of the facility.
The story surrounding this disaster will be dealt with soon.
Suffice it to say that lack of communication, inspection, regulation and cooperation also contributed to this incident. Public furor and sympathy is again brought to the fore. This time, however, there were enough codes, laws, etc., “on the books” to prevent or lessen this catastrophe.
How many disasters do we need?
