Howe Messenger, Nov. 3, 1939
Five Students Hurt as Science Room Wrecked
TWENTY-FIVE STUDENTS AND TEACHER SCATTERED AS BLAST COMES
Jack Calloway, the most seriously injured of the five students was returned to the hospital Wednesday morning where he is being fed through his nose. His condition was reported showing improvement as we went to press. The other four injured are rapidly recovering.
Twenty-five members of the Howe freshman class miraculously escaped death or serious injury about 9:30 Tuesday morning when a gas explosion rocked the science room in the northeast corner of the school building. Jack Calloway was the most seriously injured suffering a fractured chin, dislocated jaw and cuts and bruises. Three others, Mary Jane Boozer, Hanzel Smith and John Robert Coleman received cuts and bruises about the face and Charles Rose was cut on the legs.
Calloway, Smith and Coleman were taken to Sherman for treatment, X-rays being made of Calloway’s injuries. They were returned to their homes about noon. The Boozer girl and Rose were given treatment by Howe physicians. The room in which the students were assembled was a shambles with chairs, tables and laboratory equipment scattered all over the floor. All windows on the north side were blown out, even the frames being splintered by the blast. The floor was buckled in the center of the room and an built-in cabinet along the east wall was badly wrecked. The south wall, a plaster partition was blown outward, the top being seven or eight inches out of line. The explosion evidently raised the ceiling off this wall before it was pushed out as nails from ceiling joists were not bent by the movement of the wall. More than half of the composition paneled ceiling fell to the floor. The door leading into the hall was blown from the hinges.
Students seated in the rear of the room stated that the blast came without warning and that those in the front of the room including the teacher, Chas. R. Thompson, were thrown to the ceiling, together with tables and chairs. There was no flash of fire reported.
A desk and safe in the principal’s office, just west of the room in which the blast occurred, were shifted about and a typewriter was hurled from the top of the desk to the floor and broken. The door of the safe was opened by the concussion.
The commercial room in the northwest corner of the building was also damaged, the floor buckled upward in the center, several window paned were broken out and the south partition wall slightly forced outward. Typewriters were thrown to the floor and desks overturned and all but one or two of the machines were broken. No one was in this room at the time of the explosion.
One class had already been held in the science room and the second had been in progress about ten minutes. W.B. Montgomery was in charge of the first class and stated that the odor of gas was noticed and that he ordered the windows raised. A fire had been burning in the room heater since early in the morning, Chas. Sollis, building caretaker said. The heaters are a radiant type.
An investigation to determine cause of the gas accumulation under the floor was started immediately and a break was found in the gas line feeding this room. The break in the line was outside the building, the leaking gas sifting through cracks in the ground caused by extremely dry weather. The leak was small, a meter reading showing that only 23,000 feet of gas including that burned by about 20 stoves, had gone into the building lines since the last meter reading on October 10. It was presumed that the gas was ignited by the room heater, the accumulation gradually spreading until it came in contact with the flame.
Cause of the break in the line has not yet been definitely determined, although school officials are inclined to believe that there may have been some faulty workmanship in the laying of the lines. It was first thought that the line may have been broken by settling of the building but an inspection of the corner at which the break occurred failed to show any drop in the building. That shifting of the ground during the drouth, a characteristic of Texas blackland may have twisted the pipe sufficiently to cause the break is also a possibility. Plumbing for the building which was completed just about a year ago at the cost of $56,000 was done by a Dallas plumber, school officials state. A thorough inspection of all connections in the heating system is to be made.
$56,000 Building One Year Old
The Howe school building which was badly damaged by an explosion Tuesday morning was completed in September 1938 at a cost of more than $56,000. Of this amount, $25,000 was furnished by the district through sales of bonds, the remainder being supplied by WPA. The building is considered a model for WPA construction and is referred to as being the pride of the WPA office of district.
Although school officials were inclined to believe the damage to be slight, and probably more to equipment than to the building, Hoke Smith, a Dallas architect who designed the building, told them late Tuesday he feared they had more damage to the building than surface appearances might indicate. No effort was made Tuesday to estimate the damages.
C.E. Wheat said Friday that damage to the typewriters had been established at $500. An estimate of the building damage is to be made Monday, he said.
No explosion insurance was carried on the building, C.E. Wheat chairman of the board said. Faith in the efficiency in the gas installation was believed to have precluded the need for such insurance, although, ironically enough the building was protected against damage war insurrection or rioting.
The board discussed the possibility of obtaining WPA assistance in making repairs but were inclined to believe there might be considerable delay until informed by the architect that approximately $2,000 of the original WPA grant for the building and athletic field was unexpended.
The board of trustees decided Tuesday afternoon that school will not be resumed until Monday, in order that a thorough inspection of the remainder of the building might be made, and repairs to the damaged portion be nearly complete as possible.
