Cleveland, OH Gas Company Plant Explosion, Oct 1944

Death Toll in Cleveland Disaster May Total 150

66 Listed As Missing; More Than 200 Injured

CLEVELAND – (INS) – With one official predicting the eventual death toll would mount to 150, rescue workers searched thru the smoking ruins of homes, business buildings and a gas company plant today for the charred bodies of the victims of Cleveland's explosion disaster.
The known toll of men, women and children who died when a huge storage tank of liquefied natural gas exploded yesterday and spread raging fire over a half-mile area stood at 71, but the number was increasing hourly as fireman, police and volunteers worked their way further into the property of the East Ohio Gas company where the blast occurred.
The company listed 66 of its employes as missing and 11 others as dead.

200 in Hospitals
The estimate of a final death toll of 150 persons was made by Judge STANLEY L. ORR, chairman of the Cleveland chapter of the American Red Cross, after a tour of the wrecked area on the city's east side, which looks at tho it had been shattered by an aerial bombardment.
More that 200 persons had been taken to the city's hospitals, which were taxed to care for the sudden inpouring of burned and injured victims. Nearly 60 of them remained in serious condition today and some were believed in critical condition.
Approximately 125 residences and business buildings were destroyed by the searing flames and an equal number were damaged.

1250 Homeless
An estimated 1,250 residents of the St. Clair avenue section were left homeless and approximately 10,000 more fled from their dwellings as the raging fire threatened to spread still further or were forced to leave when Mayor FRANK J. LAUSCHE ordered the evacuation of an area three quarters of a mile square.
Estimates of property damage ranged from five to eight million dollars. Streets were ripped up in places by manhole and gas main explosions and thousands of windows were shattered by recurrent blasts.
Several hundred members of the State Guard and state naval militia were mobilized to relieve soldiers, sailors and coast coast guardsmen in the task of guarding the area and preventing all but police, firemen and officials from entering it.
Cause of the disastrous blast was not known, but some eyewitnesses said they saw what appeared to be clouds of the liquefied gas pouring from the tank a moment before the explosion.
The leaping tongues of flames shot out over the surrounding blocks of buildings, accompanied by waves of blistering heat, and trapped many persons in their suddenly blazing homes before they could escape.

The Coshocton Tribune Ohio 1944-10-22

Death Toll in Cleveland Blast 99; 108 Missing

CLEVELAND – (INS) – The death toll in the East Ohio Gas company explosion and fire stood at 99 today as a 10-man board of inquiry, appointed by Mayor FRANK J. LAUSCHE, began a probe of the disaster.
With a total of 108 persons still officially listed as missing and 50 others under treatment in hospitals, the final fatality figure, it was feared, might exceed that of any previous disaster in Cleveland's history.
The Cleveland Clinic fire in 1929 took 125 lives, while in the 1908 Collinwood school fire the death toll was 174.
Among those still reported as missing were 49 employes of the gas company where the seven-million-dollar conflagration broke out Friday afternoon with the explosion of a large tank containing liquid gas.
Coroner SAMUEL R. GERBER, as probing in the ruins was halted until daybreak today said he believed the remains of at least 30 more bodies would be found.
Meanwhile, members of the state militia continued to patrol the devastated area and only person with special passes were permitted inside the fire zone.
Some 10,000 persons, evacuated from the surrounding area for fear of additional explosions, yesterday were permitted to return to their homes.
The St. Clair avenue district, between East 55th and East 65th streets, also began to return to some degree of normalcy and street cars resumed operating on the avenue.
The American Red Cross reported a large majority of the approximately 700 persons made homeless by the fire would be established in semi-permanent dwellings by tomorrow night. East side school buildings have served as a refuge for many of the victims.

The Coshocton Tribune Ohio 1944-10-23

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