Many people ride by this Old Oil Distribution Center on Butler Street In Larwrenceville section of Pittsburgh that's now owned and operated by Sunoco. But 2 tragedy's which took lives occurred there. The most recent in 1980s when it was still owned by Atlantic Refining known as ARCO at the time
During a strike at the facility a KDKA TV 2 videographer was accidentally run over and crushed by a tanker truck being driven by a site supervisor .
But the most Horrific tragedy to occur was in Jan.21 1924 when 7 Pittsburgh Firefighters on a wooden extension ladder where flung into one of massive crude oil tanks that was on fire all 7 instantly drowned
The fire started when an elbow blew off in a room where gasoline was produced which ignited and sent flames thru out .
A very detailed article on the subject written by a Retired Pittsburgh firefighter is below.
It is very graphic and has all the horrors you can imagine so read at your own discretion
January 21, 1924 - PITTSBURGH, PA
7 Firefighters Dead.
Among the dead:
Fireman Patrick Benjamin Abbott, 33
‘Senior’ Lieutenant Rudolph Blisk, 46
Fireman Samuel Bollinger, 27
Fireman Peter John Frazier, 28
‘Senior’ Lieutenant Edward L. Jones, 40
Captain John Markham, 40
Fireman Robert Smith, 34
The
smell of coal and wood, burning in furnaces and fireplaces, was thick
in the morning air as the temperature in Pittsburgh hovered around minus
three degrees Fahrenheit. There was a thin layer of frozen snow on the
ground and icicles hung from houses in typical Christmas card fashion,
glistening in the early morning darkness. A light snow was gently
falling, quietly covering the tire tracks and footprints on the streets,
which had been laid the day before, then frozen over night. The
peaceful early morning scene was about to be interrupted by an
industrial accident and fire which, if not for the courageous efforts of
Pittsburgh Firefighters, had the potential to become an inferno of epic
proportions.
Around
5:24 in the morning operations from the night shift at the Atlantic
Refinery Co., located at 57th and Butler Street along the bank of the
Allegheny River in Pittsburgh‘s Lawrenceville neighborhood, were coming
to a close when a six-inch gasoline pipeline failed. The piping system,
located within one of the firewalls of the storage facility, carried the
fuel from the refinery into and through the brick and concrete
Receiving and Testing House. A ninety-degree elbow either broke or blew
completely off the piping system. The failure resulted in thousands of
gallons of newly refined gasoline to be pumped, at 40 PSI, into the
Receiving House and onto the ground around a battery of ten crude oil
storage tanks. When the fuel was ignited the resulting spectacular
explosive fireball brought instant daylight to the refinery and to lower
Lawrenceville’s 10th ward. Fortunately the operators at the facility
were able to shut off the flow of gasoline. However with so much fuel
spilled and ignited, the huge gasoline fire was already consuming the
Receiving House and one of the crude oil storage tanks.
Across
Butler Street residents were violently shaken from their beds and they
knew immediately that the explosion had come from the refinery. Just
seven months prior on June 15, 1923, a lightning strike caused a fire at
the plant that burned for twenty-seven hours. Seven large oil storage
tanks and four smaller tanks were destroyed before firefighters could
bring the fire under control. Thirty-six firemen and spectators suffered
injuries from explosions and residents along Butler Street had been
evacuated.
Box 547
alerted the first alarm companies, rousing the firemen from the cozy
warmth of their bunkrooms. Engine companies 9, 36, 25, and Truck 9 along
with Battalion Chief 3 responded on the first alarm. No.9 engine and
No.9 truck had a short five-block ride over the icy cobblestones from
their quarters at 52nd and Butler Street. No.36 Engine located at 4603
Stanton Avenue near the top of the steep and winding cobblestone road
was slowed on their ride to Butler Street by ice. Battalion Chief 3
(BC3) responding from his quarters at 44th and Calvin Street was slowed
going down the icy hill of 44th Street. No.25 Engine had a long level
run from their quarters at 3339 Penn Avenue at the point where it is
intersected by the 3400 block of Butler Street.
The
fire was visible to the crews of No.9 Engine and Truck as they traveled
east along Butler Street. They were familiar with the layout of the
facility and although they couldn’t see the tanks situated behind the
firewalls they could tell that one or more of them were burning. Huge
flames and thick black smoke was billowing high into the sky. They could
also see fire enveloping the Receiving House, which was built between
and connected by firewalls to the battery of oil storage tanks. In the
area of the fire, ten tanks faced to the south, five abreast, and six
storage tanks faced north, three abreast toward the river. The Receiving
House was forty-eight feet long between the batteries of storage tanks,
twenty feet wide, and three stories high. The crude oil storage tanks
were all sixteen feet in diameter and twenty feet in depth. Abreast, the
tanks were eight feet apart but in line only two feet separated them.
The firewall from the outside was eighteen feet high, but from the
inside where the tanks were located it was twenty-three feet high. The
tanks sat down inside a five-foot deep earthen dam the purpose of which
was to contain spills. This placed the top of the tanks five feet lower
than the firewall. Inside both storage batteries was a catwalk that ran
between the tanks through a myriad of piping. A stairway from outside of
the firewall and earthen dam provided access to the fifteen-foot high
catwalk and to the top of the tanks.
The
crew of No.9 Engine and Truck arrived at the plant in five minutes and
connected to a hydrant on the west side of the facility, traveled north
around the plant to set up operations on the east; the five fire
hydrants serving the two batteries were all on the west side and the
fire was on the east. As ‘Senior’ Lieutenant Rudolph Blisk was issuing
orders to his crew he was met by Walter L. Davis, the chief of the plant
firemen, who was a retired veteran of twenty-four years with the
Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire. Davis reported that one tank, No.143, was
burning and his men were inside the battery of tanks extinguishing the
gasoline fire and trying to contain its spread to any more of the tanks.
‘Senior’ Lieutenant Blisk ordered his men to set up and begin to attack
the fire in the Receiving House. When the 3rd Battalion Chief, Captain
James O’Toole, arrived on the scene he immediately put in a second
alarm. When Engines 36 and 25 arrived on the scene, they also connected
to hydrants, laid hose to the east side of the battery, and began
pouring water into the Receiving house.
The
second alarm brought engines 6, 26, 28, 14, Truck 25, and 4th Battalion
Chief (BC4), Fred Beckett. No.6 responded from their quarters at 44th
and Calvin Streets. No.26 had a very long run from their quarters at the
corner of Webster Avenue and Wandless Street in Pittsburgh’s Hill
District. No.28 and Chief Beckett also had a long run responding from
their quarters at Filbert and Elmer Streets in Shadyside. No.14
quartered on Neville Street near Ellsworth Avenue also had a very long
run over the icy streets. Truck 25 had the most level run of all second
alarm companies. They were first to arrive on the scene from their
quarters at 3339 Penn Avenue. Once BC4, Chief Beckett, arrived, he took
overall command from BC3. The Third Battalion Chief, a Captain normally
assigned to Engine 25, was ‘acting’ for the night shift in the absence
of the usual Chief. As the second alarm companies began to arrive, Chief
Beckett deployed them around the battery of ten tanks to prevent any
more of them from catching fire. Using 2-½” hose lines the firemen began
putting thousands of gallons of water on the tanks to keep them cooled
and to keep any flaming debris or embers from igniting them. Captain
O’Toole remained in charge of the first alarm companies who were making
good progress attacking the fire in the Receiving and Testing House
through windows on the ground and second floor from a stair access. They
had extinguished the fire in the first floor and had advanced up the
stair and were attacking the second floor. Ice was forming everywhere.
With the bitter cold temperatures anywhere that water fell, other than
on the fire, it instantly froze. The stairs were iced completely over
and stalactites of ice from the railings and supports were working their
way to the ground from the continuous flow of water. The ground around
all the operating units was a sheet of ice which made movement around
the fire ground treacherous. Above the firemen ice and icicles had
formed from the firewall, stairways, catwalks, power lines, and piping
systems. Ice also completely covered everything on the grounds and
equipment surrounding this section of the refinery. The firemen
themselves were encrusted with ice from the ever present mist that is
produced from spraying water to the fire. Their helmets, gloves, coats,
boots, mustaches, and even eyebrows were ice coated. The men were
freezing; the cold and moisture penetrated through their bodies and
stung exposed skin like angry hornets. Yet in this extreme of elements,
the icy cold, the heat of burning oil, and the ever-present danger of
thousands of gallons of fuel igniting, they stayed at their posts.
Daylight was slowly coming upon them, and they knew that the crew coming
on duty for the day shift would soon relieve them.
The
stair where the men of Engines 9, 36, and 25 were attacking the
Receiving and Testing house fire went up fifteen feet to a ten-foot long
catwalk along the second floor. From that position they had to fight
heavy fire through an entry door and across an extremely hot second
floor. Due to the brick and concrete design of the structure, the
interior held the heat like a kiln. From the second floor catwalk the
stair traveled up to the center of the third floor. Fifteen feet along
the catwalk to the right was an entry door. To the left the catwalk
traveled twenty feet before continuing up to the roof. The entire
thirty-five foot span was a raging inferno. Fire was blowing from the
door and window openings and the firemen could not get into a position
to attack it. They couldn’t advance up into the flames and heat and they
couldn’t effectively get water into the windows from their position
underneath them.
To
attack the third floor they needed another platform from which to
operate. Instead of going back to one of their own apparatus for a
ladder, which would involve walking some distance over the icy ground,
they used a ladder that had been placed earlier by the Standard Refinery
employees. The refinery firefighters had taken a steam hose line up the
ladder and attempted to extinguish the fire in the crude oil storage
tank with it. When the steam failed to stop the fire, they carried the
line back down and left the ladder in place. It was in perfect position
for the Pittsburgh Firemen. The ladder was a wooden, forty-foot, two-fly
sections Bangor or pole ladder, similar in style and construction to
what the Fire Bureau commonly used. The poles are attached to the
outside rails and when the ladder is raised they are spread and used for
additional support. This type of ladder is much heavier than standard
ground ladders and usually involves six or eight men to raise one.
Around 7:00 A.M. Captain O’Toole re-positioned his men. One crew with a
hose line remained on the stairway. Two firefighters from No.9 Engine
took a hose line up the ladder to put water into the third floor of the
Receiving House. O’Toole and six other firefighters took two hose lines
around to the top of tank 144 which was along side the burning tank, and
attempted to smother the burning oil with a deluge of water. With the
frigid temperature and the ice that had encrusted every stair and
walkway this movement of men and heavy canvas jacketed hose was a superb
and exhausting effort. Near 7:30 A.M. Chief of the Fire Bureau, Michael
Shanahan and Deputy Assistant Chief, Frank Loxterman, arrived on the
scene. As senior commanders they did a walk around of the entire scene,
checking on the overall safety of the crews, employment of each unit,
and talked to the men offering encouragement as they checked for
evidence of cold weather injury. Several men had fallen on the ice; two
firefighters had already been transported to the hospital for injuries
sustained from falls on the ice. Even with their heightened awareness of
the danger ice presented, firefighters were falling down.
Chief
Shanahan found his crews at this fire making good progress and his
subordinate Chiefs had done a good job placing them in positions of
relative safety. He later reported, “I found hose lines laid from the
engines to different parts of the building and on the second and third
floor of the fire escape. Chief Beckett had two companies manning hose
lines laid across the tanks and the refinery’s men were also at hose
lines strung along through the same place. Everything looked as safe as
possible. I found everything to be in a very safe condition so far as
hazardous risk of any kind was concerned…”
Between
8:00 and 8:30 a.m. the daylight shift crews were starting to arrive in
police wagons to relieve the night shift crew. The incoming crews walked
cautiously over the ice but their gait was smooth and easy. The men
being relieved walked slow, hunched over and stiff. The cold had
tightened their joints and the three hours spent battling the fire had
numbed their extremities. Even with the extreme cold, some of the
firefighters remained working at the scene after their relief man had
arrived. Chief Beckett was one who chose to stay and see the fire
brought under control. When Captain Weihrauch of No.6 Engine relieved
Captain O’Toole as BC3, Beckett took charge of the operations on the top
of tank No.144. He was now supervising the men from Engines 9, 26 and
28. On top of the tank with Chief Beckett were Captain Edward Johnston
and Firefighter Joseph Blanchard of No.28 Engine. Manning the hoses were
Lieutenant Edward Jones from No.26, Captain John Markham, Lieutenant
Rudolph Blisk, Firefighters Robert Smith, Samuel Bollinger, and Peter
Frazier from No.9. With their two hose lines they continued to pour
water on the blazing tank directly across from them. Above and behind
them with a hose line, still directing water into the third floor of the
Receiving and Testing house, were Charles Bollinger, Samuel’s older
brother from No.9, and Patrick Abbott from No.26. The Bangor ladder was
leaning on the fire wall and rose above it nine feet. It was fourteen
feet from the tip of the ladder to the top of the tank. Charley
Bollinger was near the top with the nozzle and Abbott was just below
clinging to Bollinger and the hose. Standing on the firewall and holding
on to the ladder was Firefighter William Lowrie of No.26. It was near
nine-o’clock in the morning.
Without
warning the section of ladder above the firewall suddenly broke. Nine
feet of the top fly section failed under the weight of Bollinger and
Abbott hurling them fourteen feet down onto the top of tank No.144. They
fell into the midst of their comrades. In the same moment Firefighter
William Lowrie who had been holding on to the ladder as he stood on the
firewall lost his balance. He attempted to catch himself from falling
forward, twenty-five feet down in between the tank and the firewall, but
only succeeded in falling backward. He fell eighteen feet and landed
with a horrible thud on the ice. The men on the tank heard the loud
crack when the ladder failed but even before they could turn their heads
toward the sound, Bollinger and Abbott were down. Bollinger never let
go of his hose line and rode the ladder down. Abbott either fell or
jumped clear of the ladder. When he impacted on the top of the tank his
weight multiplied by his velocity plus the weight of six other
firefighters was more than that small section of roof could stand. The
section failed and seven Pittsburgh Firefighters plunged simultaneously
into four thousand gallons of freezing crude oil. Bollinger still
clinging to the hose landed awkwardly with the ladder but was uninjured.
He landed forward of the seven other firemen and was spared falling
into the tank.
The tank
cover was made of wood. The conical shaped support framing was built of
two by six joists spaced seven feet apart at the perimeter. The joists
then rose slightly and connected together at a six-inch vent pipe in the
center. The framing was covered by 7/8” plywood sheeting and tarpaper
and, according to a refinery engineer report; the cover had strength of
eighty pounds per square foot. There were a total of eight pie shaped
sections that made up the top. One of the sections between the two by
six joists had collapsed when Firefighter Abbott fell on to it.
Beckett,
Johnston, and Blanchard were standing in front of and just to the left
of the other men. They had also turned toward the sound and saw a blur
of Bollinger and Abbott falling onto the deck among the other firemen
and in the same moment saw the group plunge into the tank. In utter
disbelief of what they had just witnessed they stood bewildered for only
seconds before reacting. With no regard for their own personal safety
on the precipice of a compromised sixteen-foot roof span they moved to
the triangular shaped perforation and peered in after their comrades.
Below them, from the oil, came the echoing sounds of liquid moving and
splashing.
The men in
the oil had no chance for survival. They were all dressed in heavy
winter clothing under their long rubberized fire coats. They all were
wearing leather fire boots, which immediately filled with oil. The tank
was somewhat less than half full so they plunged twelve feet into eight
feet of icy cold oil. Their momentum carried them right to the bottom of
the tank where they were initially mired in a thick sludge of old oil
waste. By the time they hit the bottom of the tank they would have
already inhaled their first gulp of oil: the human response to being
suddenly thrust into cold water is an involuntary gasping inhale.
Still
there was an instinctive fight for life. Firefighter Peter Frazier
managed to kick his boots off and push himself up to the top of the oil.
He surfaced briefly, choking, expecting to breathe, and finding he
still couldn’t. And he was unable to utter a sound. His head was out of
the oil but still immersed in a blanket of fire foam. Terrified,
breathless, he continued to thrash, sinking into the crude oil.
The
refinery operators had put fire foam into every tank in the battery.
The foam was generated in a separate building and pumped to the tanks
through a piping system. There was several feet of the fire foam mixture
on top of the oil. In those days they used a powder mix of aluminum
sulphate, sodium bi-carbonate, and an extract of licorice. When the
three compounds were combined a chemical reaction caused bubbles of
carbon-dioxide gas to form. It was the CO2 bubbles that created the
blanket of foam. This blanket of CO2 kept oxygen away from the oil,
prevented it from igniting, and prevented poor Peter Frazier from
breathing.
Lieutenant
Edward Jones had managed to get a hold of the windlass chain that hung
from the top to the bottom of the tank. There was a windlass located on
the top of each tank used for periodic maintenance. Jones, weighted down
with oil, had managed to pull himself up out of the freezing liquid and
above the foam. The men on top saw him and he saw them. “HELP ME!” he
cried out to them. “OH GOD I CAN’T HOLD ON!” Chief Beckett hollered back
to him, “Hang on; we’ll get you out in a minute!” The chain and his
hands were slick with oil and he sank from sight. He suddenly
re-appeared. “HELP ME…HELP ME…OH GOD!” Lieutenant Jones, gasping for
air, sank again.
The
other men in the tank struggled against the oil, their gear, and each
other. The panic in each of them kept them all submerged as they fought
each other for life. They didn’t know and it didn’t matter that there
was nowhere for them to go, theirs was an instinctive drive to survive.
They, like Frazier and Jones, would’ve only managed to get above the oil
to find that there was no air inside the blanket of fire foam.
Surfacing would have only prolonged their suffering. In less than one
minute there was no longer any movement in the tank and all was quiet.
Firefighter
Joe Blanchard, from atop the tank, was yelling over the firewall for
help. Firefighters had already gathered below the firewall coming to the
aid of William Lowrie who had fallen. A ladder was quickly brought up, a
sixteen footer that was too short and another was called for. On the
ground word rapidly spread of the tragedy and men were going up on the
tank to try and help. They had to be ordered off for fear of another
collapse. A second ground ladder was hauled up, a twenty-eight foot
extension ladder. When it was placed inside the tank Chief Beckett
descended into the darkness only briefly and came back up ordering that
it be drained. He said, “I went down the ladder and could not see
anybody. I was up to my waist in foam and could hardly breathe from the
fumes.” The refinery employees set about the task of opening and closing
valves within the piping system to drain the tank of its contents.
Chief Shanahan had his companies get back to the business of
extinguishing the fire. The suppression operations on the west side of
the battery had ceased after the calamity on the tank.
It
took thirty minutes for the tank to drain. It seemed like hours to the
firemen who stood shivering in the brutal cold waiting to get their
buddies out. In the meantime an ambulance arrived and Firefighter
William ‘Buck’ Lowrie was transported to St. Margaret’s Hospital. Lowrie
was unconscious from the eighteen-foot fall and doctors would find he
had also suffered a broken back, broken arm, and internal injuries. He
survived his ordeal and returned to duty after several months of
convalescence. Due to the lingering effects of his injuries he would no
longer be in fire suppression. Buck Lowrie, a native Texan, would
continue his career as a fire ‘inspector.’
When
the tank was finally emptied of its contents, a refinery mill-right
unbolted and opened a hatch near the tank’s bottom. A group of refinery
riggers and Pittsburgh firefighters waited outside the access along with
the city chief surgeon, Doctor Daniel F. Sable, and a Catholic priest,
Father Thomas Brown. Father Brown had noticed a line of morgue wagons on
their way to the refinery and had followed them to the scene, unaware
of what had occurred.
Chief
Beckett, Captain Weihrauch, and a crew of six men from No.6 Engine
descended into the gloom of the death tank. They all complained of
“sulfurous fumes” burning their eyes and throats and causing a bad
taste. It was the remaining high concentration of CO2 that put the sour
taste into their mouths and caused a stinging sensation in their
throats. The symptoms were caused by the gas that dissolved in their
mucous membranes and saliva, which formed a weak solution of carbonic
acid. What they felt was a sensation similar to the feeling of trying to
stifle a burp after drinking a carbonated beverage like cola or ginger
ale. The concentration of CO2 was no longer immediately dangerous to
life. It may have been unhealthy, but the men who entered the tank to
remove the bodies survived the gruesome task.
Chief
Beckett waded through the waist high thick black sludge and foam for a
few minutes before finding the first victim. They carried the dead
fireman to the hatch and pushed him out to the waiting arms of refinery
personnel. One after another the dead were pushed out of the belly of
the tank that had swallowed them. Retrieving the dead firemen was an
awful task. It was dark and hard to breathe. Every sound was magnified
by echoes within the tank. Oil sludge filled up the sullen men’s boots
and saturated their clothing and undergarments. But worst of all, their
dead comrades were completely saturated with oil that added to their
weight and made them slick and incredibly difficult to manage.
As
the dead were removed from the tank, Doctor Sable had them placed on
heavy wool blankets where he quickly examined each looking for any sign
of life. Father Brown then anointed each man with holy water, said a
prayer, and blessed the deceased before the body was wrapped and
transported. Abbott, Blisk, Jones, and Smith’s remains were taken
directly to the morgue. Bollinger, Frazier, and Markham’s remains were
initially taken to St. Margaret’s Hospital where they were pronounced
dead before being taken to the morgue.
A
large crowd of spectators along Butler St. had been watching the
efforts of the firefighters battling the blaze. When the ambulances from
the morgue began to arrive at the scene rumors of firefighters being
killed at the fire spread rapidly. Wives and children of firemen who
lived nearby began to show up hopeful that their loved one was not among
the dead. No information had been released from the refinery or from
the Fire Department. Spectators and reporters were not authorized to
enter the refinery. As the second body was placed into a morgue
ambulance, a group of hysterical women and children tried to rush
through the police barricade at the refinery gate. They were held back
by police officers until all the morgue vehicles passed by. None of the
spectators knew who was in the morgue wagons as they left the facility.
After the last vehicle had left, Father Brown went among the throng and
gently urged them to leave. In spite of Father Brown’s insistence, those
who had husbands or other family at the scene wanted positive assurance
of the safety of their firefighter. When they ignored the
recommendation of the priest and the police, officials of the refinery
opened offices where the women and children could go to wait and warm
themselves. Hot coffee was brought to them as they anxiously waited for
news of the safety of their loved one. Two families, summoned by
officials and returned to their homes in refinery automobiles, received
news that was the worst imaginable.
The
fire was struck out at 12:50 P.M. by Deputy Chief Frank Loxterman. The
fire was completely extinguished by 10:30 A.M. but the coroner, William
McGregor, along with his chief clerk, James Davidson, Public Safety
Director C.A. Rook, and Merle Charlton, an official of Atlantic
Refinery, surveyed the tank where the firefighters had perished.
Director Rook also conducted a quick investigation with Chief Shanahan.
Coroner McGregor was already planning to convene an inquest to determine
responsibility for the death of seven firefighters.
Note: The following Article was written by
John Gombita , Pittsburgh bureau of Fire retired.
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