Pittsburgh, PA Disastrous Gas Explosion, Nov 1927

TWENTY-EIGHT DIE IN NATVIA GAS BLAST.

DISASTROUS EXPLOSION IN NORTH SIDE OF PITTSBURGH.

ENTIRE SECTION OF CITY LAY IN RUINS LAST NIGHT -- TWENTY EIGHT VICTIMS LIE IN MORGUE MUTE EVIDENCE OF CALAMITY -- HUNDREDS IN HOSPITALS, AS POLICEMEN AND FIREMEN SEARCH RUINS -- STREETS HEAVED INTO AIR BREAKING WATER MAINS AND SEWERS WHICH FLOOD DISTRICT -- HUGE GAS TANK SHOT INTO AIR LIKE BALLOON -- BALL OF FIRE TRAVELED HIGHER THAN TIP OF MOUNT WASHINGTON.

Pittsburgh, Nov. 14. (AP) -- An entire section of north side Pittsburgh lay in ruins tonight and the bodies of twenty-eight persons rested in the Allegany[sic] County morgue, mute evidence of one of the most disastrous explosions in the city's history. Death and devestation swept the Old Manchester District when a mammoth storage gas tank exploded.
Tonight as hundreds of victims of the disaster nursed their injuries in hospitals and in other havens of refugees supplied by relief agencies, firemen, policemen and volunteers continued the work of exploring the wrecked district in the belief that other bodies would be found in the mass of debris.
Firemen resorted to dynamite in an effort to move masses of wreckage. Police kept constant watch to prevent looting.
The quiet of a November morning was shattered throughout the Pittsburgh district by the terrific blast. Buildings rocked and windows crashed. At first it seemed that an earthquake had gripped the city. Telephone lines were broken and the fire alarm system was crippled. The city stood still waiting and wondering what was to come next.
Then the fire alarm sounded.
With the first shock, firemen started the motors of their apparatus, and, as the gong sounded, they rushed forth. The city soon realized that there was a disaster at hand. Automobile trucks, taxicabs, ambulances and all available motor cars soon were rushing through the downtown district, bearing the injured to hospitals.
When firemen reached the scene they were halted by the appalling sight. Streets had been heaved into the air, breaking water mines and sewers, and flooding the entire district. Homes, factories, warehouses and industrial plants lay in ruins. Men, women and children, many with blood streaming from face cuts and other injuries, ran screaming through the streets as if mad.
The cause of the disaster was soon apparent, for, in the midst of the ruins lay a twisted mass of steel, some of the supports of the giant gas tank, said to be the largest natural gas reservoir in the world. Thirteen men went to work repairing the tank at 8 A. M. Forty-three minutes later, as the workers handled their blow torches on the steel frame work, the shock came. Eye witnesses said that the tank with a capacity of some five million cubic feet, shot into the air like a balloon. A ball of fire traveled higher than the tip of Mount Washington, across the Ohio River from the scene. Sections of the steel frame work went up hundreds of feet, to crash in the descent through the roofs of houses and buildings and in the streets.
Within a brief period of time, all north side hospitals were jammed to capacity. Nearly every doctor in the city, as well as nurses, responded to the call for help. Some of the injured were treated on hospital steps for the corridors and every available inch of space within was occupied.
Panic stricken men and women forgot their work in efforts to locate loved ones and several hours after the blast occurred, mothers and fathers, their faces cut by flying glass were wandering through the wreckage, seeking children and other loved ones.
The first victims were found -- nine men, their bodies burned and mangled, near the gas tank. Later the body of a woman was picked up from a sidewalk. The rescuers found almost insurmountable conditions in their path. They carried the injured through water waste deep. Tottering walls menaced, dangling electric wires sputtered on all sides. Yet the firemen, the policemen and private citizens engaged in the work of rescue, forgot their own danger in their feverish effort to rescue others.
When it became evident that the capacity of every hospital in the city was taxed, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army established first aid stations on the outside rim of the devastated area. Here scores of persons were given medical attention. Many doctors braved the perils of the region, entering the danger zone to seek out and help victims of the disaster.
A checkup of hospitals tonight showed that 485 injured persons were given treatment. Some were so badly hurt that doctors feared they would not survive. Among the injured were many school children who were just about to enter class rooms as the tank, 233 feet in diameter and 208 feet high let go. The pupils were showered with flying glass. The panic stricken children added to the general confusion. They ran through the streets and were endangered by falling walls until rescuers finally rounded them up sent injured to hospitals and the others to residences outside the stricken region.
The disaster gripped an area of about one square mile, fronting on the Ohio River and centering in Reedsdale Street. The section is one of the city's oldest districts. It was thickly settled, old-fashioned brick and frame dwellings crodwing one upon the other, with factories, warehouses and industrial plants intermingling. In the houses for the most part were the families of working men.
Within a very brief time after the city learned of the extent of the disaster, relief agencies and others were at work seeking to help the injured and the homeless. The Equitable Gas Company, owner of the tank housed many of the homeless in its Manchester administrative buildings, in hotels and in apartment houses. Police and fire stations were thrown open to others left destitute. Many found refuge in homes outside the wrecked region.
All initial efforts to determine the cause of the blast were fruitless. It was known that workmen, a crew with blow torches were working on the death-dealing tank when it blew up. The tank, however, was supposed to be empty and officials of the company were at a loss to explain how the gas entered the reservoir. Two other nearby tanks contained gas. Pieces of steel pierced them and set the gas on fire, but the tanks did not explode.
While fire department officials said their check-up of the district showed more than thirty persons missing, including residents and workers, they believed some of those escpaed and failed to report they were safe. Undoubtedly they said, additional bodies would be found in flooded basements, pinned under debris. One body was located in the basement of the ruined Pittsburgh Clay Pot Plant. Eight other men at work in the basement werer reported missing and fire pumps were being used to rid the place of water.
The danger of falling walls was to a great extent eliminated tonight when firemen pulled down the totering remnants of ruined structures.
The damage was not confined to the immediate region. Windows throughout Pittsburgh and many suburbs were shattered, and in the downtown sections, many pedestrians were cut by flying glass.
In was impossible to estimate the total damage. The storage gas tank alone was worth $1,000,000 and plate glass broken was valued at some $50,000. Insurance company representatives said most of the houses and buildings in the zone of disaster were covered by insurance for fire but not explosion.
The city and Allegheny County quickly appropriated relief funds. City council ordered $100,000 made available, while county officials instructed the works department to make any necessary expenditures to relieve suffering.
Partial Listing Of Fatalities:
A. M. BEAVER, 25, Leetsdale.
WILLIAM BELLAM, 37, Pittsburgh.
GEORGE BENTFELD, 24, Enon Valley Structural Steel worker.
FRANK BISHOP, 45, tank repairer.
MARY CONGELIER, 28, Pittsburgh.
JOSEPH HARRIS, 23, negro.
JOHN A. McCALL, gas company employe.
CHARLES S. MICHAELS, 45, Pittsburgh.
JOHN W. MILLER, 68, Pittsburgh.
C. R. HARDY, tank repairer.
HERMAN T. SOBECK, 28, mechenical engineer, Ben Avon, Pa.
P. W. PRICE, tank repairer.
JASON WARNER, 45, tank repairer.
FRANK UBREY, 35, Pittsburgh.
JOHN MOORE, 35, negro.
JOHN H. SMITH, negro.
GEORGE LANCARIE, 43, Pittsburgh.
JOHN HARRISON, 35, laborer Pittsburgh Clay Pot Company.
P. W. WALTERS, iron worker, Sarver, Pa.
ALEX MUSCHES, negro laborer.
GEORGE LOWENGETO, died in hospital.
Four Unidentified Bodies, two of whom are so badly mutilated identification seems impossible.

Plattsburgh Sentinel New York 1927-11-15
__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!