![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A well-written, meticulous, and absolutely infuriating account of how a series of greedy, reckless, and criminally negligent decisions by multiple people led to the deaths of 100 people in a nightclub fire.
It was caused by the nightclub owners using a type of foam described by one person as "solid gasoline" as soundproofing and allowing pyrotechnics by a man who had no idea what he was doing, and the fire inspector repeatedly ignoring multiple blatant fire safety issues and issuing a permit allowing them to cram the club with more people than was safe. There were some legal consequences but nowhere near what was deserved; the fire inspector, who in my opinion was the single most culpable person given that ensuring fire safety was his literal job, was never charged. Neither were the two bouncers who physically blocked people from leaving via the stage exit while the nightclub was on fire.
It's a heartbreaking, enraging story that Barylick carefully and clearly lays out. He gets into the human aspect of the story, with many portraits of the people who lived through a horrific trauma or died an awful death when they just wanted to have some fun for a night. He paints an absolutely damning portrait of the corruption within the fire department that allowed the fire inspector to basically take bribes, plus the equally corrupt business practices of the awful nightclub owners who stiffed people as a matter of course.
He also traces the unexpected origin of that fucking foam. A man who lived next to the nightclub kept making noise complaints (understandably!) The nightclub owner visited him to try to pacify him, and they ended up discussing soundproofing. The neighbor said he worked for a company that made packing foam that might be used as soundproofing, and the nightclub owner bought it from him, presumably in the hope that the money would shut him up. The foam was not supposed to be used as soundproofing, which the neighbor probably could have guessed and the company that made it definitely knew.
The man who set off the pyrotechnics was the only one, out of everyone culpable, who showed any genuine remorse. He pled guilty against his lawyer's advice and served four years in prison.
There have been a number of improvements in fire safety in nightclubs and similar venues since then, most importantly sprinklers. But deadly fires still do happen, generally in overcrowded spaces cluttered with flammable material and without sprinklers or clearly marked and accessible exits. The Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, which killed 36 people, not only met all those criteria but occurred in a space not zoned for entertainment or residential use at all.
Barylick concludes with these brutal paragraphs:
( Read more... )
It was caused by the nightclub owners using a type of foam described by one person as "solid gasoline" as soundproofing and allowing pyrotechnics by a man who had no idea what he was doing, and the fire inspector repeatedly ignoring multiple blatant fire safety issues and issuing a permit allowing them to cram the club with more people than was safe. There were some legal consequences but nowhere near what was deserved; the fire inspector, who in my opinion was the single most culpable person given that ensuring fire safety was his literal job, was never charged. Neither were the two bouncers who physically blocked people from leaving via the stage exit while the nightclub was on fire.
It's a heartbreaking, enraging story that Barylick carefully and clearly lays out. He gets into the human aspect of the story, with many portraits of the people who lived through a horrific trauma or died an awful death when they just wanted to have some fun for a night. He paints an absolutely damning portrait of the corruption within the fire department that allowed the fire inspector to basically take bribes, plus the equally corrupt business practices of the awful nightclub owners who stiffed people as a matter of course.
He also traces the unexpected origin of that fucking foam. A man who lived next to the nightclub kept making noise complaints (understandably!) The nightclub owner visited him to try to pacify him, and they ended up discussing soundproofing. The neighbor said he worked for a company that made packing foam that might be used as soundproofing, and the nightclub owner bought it from him, presumably in the hope that the money would shut him up. The foam was not supposed to be used as soundproofing, which the neighbor probably could have guessed and the company that made it definitely knew.
The man who set off the pyrotechnics was the only one, out of everyone culpable, who showed any genuine remorse. He pled guilty against his lawyer's advice and served four years in prison.
There have been a number of improvements in fire safety in nightclubs and similar venues since then, most importantly sprinklers. But deadly fires still do happen, generally in overcrowded spaces cluttered with flammable material and without sprinklers or clearly marked and accessible exits. The Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, which killed 36 people, not only met all those criteria but occurred in a space not zoned for entertainment or residential use at all.
Barylick concludes with these brutal paragraphs:
( Read more... )
