Sprinklers

[snopes]

Comment: I've found this story repeated in several sermons. The account is
the same, but some may leave out details like the town name. No where can
I find any confirmation of the story. With a death toll of 263, you'd
think they'd be some web story somewhere.

"Just before World War II in the town of Itasca, Texas, a school fire took
the lives of 263 children. There was scarcely a family in town that was
not touched by this horrifying tragedy. After the war, the town built a
new school, which featured what was called "the finest sprinkler system in
the world." The town was very proud of their new school. Honour students
were selected to guide citizens and visitors on tours of the new facility
to show them the finest, most advanced sprinkler system technology. Never
again would a fire disaster happen.

Many years later, the town made progress and grew. It was necessary to
enlarge the school - and in adding the new wing, it was discovered that
the sprinkler system had never been connected.

.. Story told by Dr Howard Hendricks on 4 Mar 82 @ International Congress
on Biblical Inerrancy in San Diego, California."

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Huh? What is the point of that story?

[snopes]

The moral is: "What a tragedy it is when we fail to hook up to the power of God available to us."

[BrianB]

Originally Posted by snopes

No where can I find any confirmation of the story. With a death toll of 263, you'd think they'd be some web story somewhere.

Google is your friend, my young padawan emailer:

http://www.newlondonschool.org/index.html

On March 18 students prepared for the next day's Inter-scholastic meet in Henderson. At the gymnasium, the PTA met. At 3:17 P.M. Lemmie R. Butler, instructor of manual training, turned on a sanding machine in an area which, unknown to him, was filled with a mixture of gas and air. The switch ignited the mixture and carried the flame into a nearly closed space beneath the building, 253 feet long and fifty-six feet wide.
{ snip }
Of the 500 students and forty teachers in the building, approximately 298 died. Some rescuers, students, and teachers needed psychiatric attention, and only about 130 students escaped serious injury.

Brian

[GenYus234]

So the number of students who were killed is wrong and the location is wrong (not even in the same country). Also, several of the stories talk about how the explosion prompted the adding of oderants to natural gas, but none of them talk about the new sprinkler system. They do talk about the newly built building being a standard for safety though.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by GenYus234

the location is wrong (not even in the same country).

Eh? Both the OP and Brian's example take place in Texas.

[GenYus234]

Oops. Not even in the same county, not country. Fingers not listening to brain.

[Pudding Crawl]

Yeah, I had a brief scud through 'school-based catastrophes' and considered New London, but that was an explosion rather than a simple fire. Usually if there is a subsequent fire which contributes greatly to a disaster it is specifically mentioned.
All accounts mention the catastrophic collapse of the building being the main event. Details like 'within seventeen hours all victims and debris had been taken from the site' and rescuers immediately digging through the rubble don't indicate a prolonged or serious fire; recollections and descriptions of the scene do not mention a fire. Would sprinklers have any limiting effect on a gas explosion, anyway, especially in a case like this where the ignition source was small and short-lived?

ETA: and without any of that, it's unclear how someone reads 'addition of mercaptan' and gets 'sprinklers'.

[BrianB]

Originally Posted by GenYus234

Not even in the same county, not country.

Actually, I was surprised by the fact that the real and OP versions both took place in Texas before World War II since I would have normally expected the glurge version to have mutated much more. It's also the reason it only took me seconds to find the real version. (I searched "Texas school fire" and the New London School explosion accounted for over a third of the hits on the first page.)

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

Huh? What is the point of that story?

Yea, I think the author of the OP needs to go back glurge writing school. It needs a better hook and a moral of some kind.

Brian

[Pudding Crawl]

Maybe the implied moral is 'don't trust in technology, because it might be wrong and false and unconnected, but God is always there for you and prepared to sprinkle'... but they forgot the green-ink underlining.

[Lainie]

Hijack: IIRC, one of the reporters covering the New London story was a young Walter Cronkite.

ETA:

Although Cronkite went on to cover World War II and the Nuremberg trials, he was quoted as saying decades later, "I did nothing in my studies nor in my life to prepare me for a story of the magnitude of that New London tragedy, nor has any story since that awful day equaled it."[8]

Wiki, with a cite I can't open from here.

[Gin Rickey]

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

Huh? What is the point of that story?

To paraphrase Fernando: "It is better, my frien's, to feel saved, than to be saved."

[Mickey Blue]

In a weird way it can work as a moral of focusing so much on the complexities of solving a problem, and bragging about how you solved it, that you can overlook a simple but critical step that renders all your work moot.

Sort of like spending forever trying to fix a mechanical problem only to find out the thing wasn't plugged in.

That's how I took it, I cannot think of a quick and fancy way to write that up but yea.

[nonnieyrissa]

As the product of a family that takes Catholicism and Glurge to an extreme level of ugh, I would assume that the moral of the story would be...

OMG! Can you believe how AMAZING our Father In the Heavens is!!!!1!
Some ungodly cretin forgets to connect the sprinkler system but The Lord obviously had his angels watching over these dear children and educators because there WASN'T a fire and NO-ONE died!!! Even though they could have died without the sprinkler system. IF there had been a fire, but there WASN'T a fire... because God was protecting the poor souls when the sinners responsible for properly executing the fire safety system FAILED. AMEN!!!1!eleventy1!!!

No-one died, well, at least not since the last fire(but those 298 sinners have nothing to do with this, so...)

[Avril]

As you seem to be missing your glurge, let me help.

The Church: Christ's Body to a Broken World

Is that not amazing!


They had spent all that money, done everything humanly possibly to assure that kind of tragedy would never occur again and then discovered they had never connected the marvelous system!


Are you hooked up?


How many Christians have this incredible power dwelling in them and yet don’t have it hooked up?

Also, The Power for Us Who Believe

This is a parable of what has happened in so many Christian lives. There is untold power available for every believer in Christ, but so many never hook up. Are you lives powerless and weak? Are you connected?

God has revealed all the TRUTH we need. What is needed is to have our SPIRITUAL EYES opened to it.

Also, Friends of God:

Jesus taught the disciples concerning the need of being connected to the vine. Being “connected” to the source is important.

(We incidentally get a source cited here: Howard Hendricks, message to the International Congress on Biblical Inerrancy in San Diego, March 4, 1982, as quoted by R. Kent Hughes. Acts: The Church Afire. (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1996) p. 272.)

Finally, Stopping to Refuel

That describes a lot of Christians. They’re living day to day and maybe even coming to worship on a regular basis but they have no personal connection with Jesus. Studies have found that the majority of Christians do not have a daily time where they refuel with God or read the Bible. They want to but they don’t and the result is they end up feeling guilty all the time. They know they should do it but they either don’t know how or can’t find the time. And they think, “I must be the only Christian who isn’t making a daily connection with God.” And it becomes even worse when we compare what they’ve heard about other people’s devotional time. Martin Luther the great Christian reformer of the 16th century said, “My day is so busy that I get up at 4 AM. to spend 3 hours with God before the day startsTalk about feeling guilty! I didn’t even know there was a 4 AM. And I have to tell you, I am adamantly opposed to early morning Christianity. .” John Wesley used to connect with God like Luther early in the morning and then at 9, 12 3 and 6 PM. But it’s those types of comparisons to spiritual saints only induce more guilt.

You get the idea. But it's a weird illustration of most of the points people are trying to make--water isn't "power" (at least not in a sprinkler system) or fuel. I think the connection the vine thing makes the most glurgy logic.

But I'm tired of reading sermons, so I'm going to stop.

[Avril]

All right, so somewhat more helpfully, there was a fire at an orphanage in Itasca in the winter of 1939-1940. I doubt that Itasca could ever have had a school of the size indicated in the OP; so far as I know, it's a very small town and always has been. But in any case, I found the following in databases to which I have access:

"Funds Being Raised for Burned Orphanage," Dallas Morning News 26 January 1940:

ITASCA, Texas, Jan. 25 (AP)--Plans were being made here Thursday to raise funds for rebuilding a boys' dormitory at the Presbyterian Home and School for Orphans, destroyed by a fire.

Twenty boys in the building were quickly herded to safety when the blaze was discovered. They were temporarily housed in another building.

Cause of the fire was not known. Attempts to control it were hampered by ice-clogged fire-fighting equipment.

More coming if I can find it.

ETA: Searches for the number of deaths mentioned and school fire returned nothing relevant.

[Chloe]

Martin Luther said "Talk about feeling guilty!"?

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

Huh? What is the point of that story?

This story had the finest moral ever. Many years later, however, after telling and retelling, the story had to be further expanded and exaggerated beyond any shred of truth. It was discovered only then that the moral had never been connected.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Chloe

Martin Luther said "Talk about feeling guilty!"?

It's especially funny if you imagine Martin Luther with a Borscht Belt accent.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Good one, ganzfeld.