Remembering The Worst Night Of My Life Remembered!
On a brisk winter evening of December 28th, 1983, I was a rookie firefighter assigned to Eng. 25, located at Seneca and Southside St. At that point, in my 8-month career, I barely had any large working fires under my spanner belt. Little did I know I was about to experience the greatest disaster in Buffalo Fire Department history. I was working the night shift and just finished dinner and retired to the bunk room for a little R and R, to rest up to pre pare to stand for an all-night watch later in the evening. Suddenly, I felt a rumbling that shook the entire firehouse.
I immediately jumped up and walked back onto the apparatus floor where I could see what looked like a bomb had exploded in the distance. Within a few seconds I heard an unusually urgent “beeep….beeep..beepp… an “Alarm of Fire to Box 195. Division and Grosvenor. Then almost immediately another beeep… beeep… beeep.. bleared and A “third alarm to Box 191 at S. Division and Grosvenor. Eng 25 Eng 35, Eng 30. Truck 10 I knew at that moment I was going to witness something I’d never experienced before. As we raced toward the bellow ing black smoke my crew was Captain E. Corcoran, Driver F.F. Jimmy Lynch. F.F., Ger ald Chudy and myself. As we careened towed the heart of darkness no one said a word. I could feel my knees shaking anticipating what was happen ing. When we pulled onto the scene it can only be described as surreal. I remember there was a strange stillness in the midst of all the screaming sirens and confusion.
Upon arriving, the Capt. ordered us to hook up to the nearest hydrant and drag the big 2/ 12 lines onto the ruble to put out smoldering hotspots of burning ruble underneath the brick. It was an impotent use of our resources but there really wasn’t much else to do at that point. We immediately understood that there was a great hazard walking on the broken brick that was 4 -6 feet deep. One misstep into a hol low crevasse or a shifting brick could have easily trapped and crunched a limb. For myself, the oddest thing was how totally devastated the building had become. The term blown up was exactly what it looked like. It seemed every individual brick was shattered with a force that was unimaginable. Later that evening, I actually had to ask a bystander what stood there before it blew up. That’s when I found out that a 4-story brick warehouse stood there only a few hours earlier.
Throughout that night, we could see much of the fire load was in the homes surrounding the explosion. There was a lot of heroism that night that was never recognized in the fog of the tragedy. As the night wore on, I could hear and see the sounds of emergency lighting, searching for victims and bodies. At some point while maneuvering from hotspot to hotspot, I could see from the glow of the fires the unbelievable site of a crunched Fire apparatus, some with their siren and lights still flashing. I could see the crushed carcass of what Ladder 5. I knew with out being told that someone had to have died. It wasn’t until the next day that I found out the entire crew of Ladder 5 had perished. Five dead, the largest loss of life in the history Buffalo Fire Department. I was acquainted with them all. Their deaths sent a shiver down my spine because I had been detailed to Eng.32 L-5 the pre vious week and realized I could have been there on that fateful winter evening. As the night wore on and all fire and rescue services were in full effect, I remember the crowds that had gathered. I wondered if my parents heard about the blast and I wanted them to know I was okay. I asked a bystander if this made the news. “Man, this news across the world “he said. (CNN was a new network then).
As the night wore on at the break of dawn I could see bet ter and realized that not only had the warehouse exploded, but it also blew wide opening into a bakery warehouse next door. Later we would find out the explosion was the result of a freak accident, when a large propane filler tank ruptured and released its gas into a sealed warehouse’s atmosphere and detonated, when exposed to a fire borrow that warehouse workers were using to keep warm. By 8 am the next morn ing my crew was relieved, and we went back to the firehouse in a Chiefs rig, and no one really said a word. I don’t know why. There was nothing to say. And to be honest, I never publicly discussed the matter before. All I know, is 36 years later I think of that night every year and the men who died in the line of duty on that snowy December night.