New London School Explosion 73 years ago today

[JerryNumbers]

New London School Explosion 73 years ago today



On that day in 1937 293 students plus teachers and other school workers died. It seems thanks to them we have that bad smell in natural gas so it there is a leak we will hopeful know it before there's an explosion. I can't imagine the feeling of friends and family members in that community.


Here is a web-site inmemory of that day.

[Psalms18_28]

It is sad that people didn't think of this before as a precaution. but glad they finally added the sulfur/rotten egg smell to gas. I have gas furnace/water heater myself.

[JerryNumbers]

Yes, its very sad. I read an article about it in the paper, but already knew about it. That was a lot of grief for one town to have. Our house is all electric, I love it.

[Invicta]

Gas explosions still happen. About 5 years ago in the town where I then lived, there was an explosion in a house in the night, which completely destroyed the house and damaged about others. There was an old lady living there and amazingly she was not badly injured.

[JerryNumbers]

Of course gas explosions still happen, I would be nuts to say they do not. But something good came out of that day and many explosions have been avoided. That is, I saying because of the smell put into gas after that bad explosion many people have not died.

But this topic was not about that, its about what happened that day, so I chose not to go into all of that. I figure there be many around here that never knew about the day the New London School Explosion which resulted in many deaths of school age children nor that it was the caused of the bad smell to be put into natural gas.

[Invicta]

When I was a child our gas was coal gas. That had the terrible smell of rotten eggs, and at school we were taught that the smell was added, not for fear of explosions but because coal gas had a large amount of carbon monoxide and was very poisonous. It was also more explosive that natural gas. Then they discovered gas under the North Sea, and within a short period coal gas disappeared and was replaced with natural gas. This also has a smell added but not so OBnoxious as the former. It seems that a lot of people do not recognize the smell in small amounts. I have often been into our church and said I could smell gas but nOBody else could.