Thursday marks the 60th anniversary of the deadliest hotel fire in US history. In the wee, small hours of December 7, 1946, a fire broke out in Atlanta's Hotel Winecoff and quickly shot up through the then-towering (for Atlanta) height of 15 stories.
The newspaper headline had the body count off by one - "only" 119 people died in the horrific fire, including a group of best-and-brightest teens in town to participate in a mock legislature at the Georgia State Capitol.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a good story in Sunday's paper about a reunion of some of the survivors and firemen who saved them.
A Georgia Tech grad student, Arnold Hardy, became the first amateur to win the Pulitzer Prize. With his last flashbulb he caught a disturbing shot of a woman jumping from a window. See the photo and read how Hardy got the shot here.
Like the Titanic, the Winecoff's self-promotion was a study in hubris. The hotel was billed, after all, as completely fireproof. (Note to self: Never stay at, sail on, ride in, or otherwise come anywhere close to anything promising to be indestructible. That sort of thing always gets a big "Ya' think so?" from God.)
So remember, the next time you stay in a hotel and see those little sprinkler things and fire escape maps on the door, you have the doomed Hotel Winecoff to thank for those little safety features.
The newspaper headline had the body count off by one - "only" 119 people died in the horrific fire, including a group of best-and-brightest teens in town to participate in a mock legislature at the Georgia State Capitol.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a good story in Sunday's paper about a reunion of some of the survivors and firemen who saved them.
A Georgia Tech grad student, Arnold Hardy, became the first amateur to win the Pulitzer Prize. With his last flashbulb he caught a disturbing shot of a woman jumping from a window. See the photo and read how Hardy got the shot here.
Like the Titanic, the Winecoff's self-promotion was a study in hubris. The hotel was billed, after all, as completely fireproof. (Note to self: Never stay at, sail on, ride in, or otherwise come anywhere close to anything promising to be indestructible. That sort of thing always gets a big "Ya' think so?" from God.)
So remember, the next time you stay in a hotel and see those little sprinkler things and fire escape maps on the door, you have the doomed Hotel Winecoff to thank for those little safety features.
1 comment:
The Towering Inferno still scares me. Fire is so uncontrolled and uncontrollable.
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