The New London School explosion was one of the worst school disasters in U.S history, and the worst disaster in Texas history. In the beginning, Rusk County, New London was like any other town during the 1930’s, big on agriculture and farming. That being until the discovery of oil all throughout Texas. New London had struck gold with a deal on oil and had not only had an increase in population but in money as well. With the money the town had been earning and the people, the town experienced construction of new buildings, houses and businesses. The town has also welcomed a brand new school, The London School of New London. It was an exquisite building, that housed elementary, middle and high school students it averaged over one million dollars. Now running a building that expensive was not
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Superintendent, William Shaw approved of the plan to connect the pipes to the natural gas line. In spite of other companies warning of the possible dangers that can occur from this, the idea prevailed as planned. After they installed the pipes, some of them had begun to leak gas. Back then gas was odorless so identifying gas would have been quite hard really. Meanwhile students and teachers would attend school as if nothing was happening, no one had a clue gas was leaking. Gas had eventually accumulated all throughout the school, when gas meets with fire it reacts explosively unfortunately this was the case on March 18, 1937. Students went to school as if it was any other day. Gas had been leaking for months at this point, so anything relative to fire would set it off. Some say that the catastrophe of the New London school explosion occurred due to a spark from a sanding machine. That spark allowed the roof to fly off, walls had blown outward and the school scattered across the yard. Just fifteen minutes were left in the day before students would have been sent
Superintendent, William Shaw approved of the plan to connect the pipes to the natural gas line. In spite of other companies warning of the possible dangers that can occur from this, the idea prevailed as planned. After they installed the pipes, some of them had begun to leak gas. Back then gas was odorless so identifying gas would have been quite hard really. Meanwhile students and teachers would attend school as if nothing was happening, no one had a clue gas was leaking. Gas had eventually accumulated all throughout the school, when gas meets with fire it reacts explosively unfortunately this was the case on March 18, 1937. Students went to school as if it was any other day. Gas had been leaking for months at this point, so anything relative to fire would set it off. Some say that the catastrophe of the New London school explosion occurred due to a spark from a sanding machine. That spark allowed the roof to fly off, walls had blown outward and the school scattered across the yard. Just fifteen minutes were left in the day before students would have been sent