Forty years ago today a passenger jet crashed into the Potomac river
due to heavy snow, killing almost everyone on board. It also killed
people on the 14th Street Bridge on its way down.

Also, a Metro train had a fatal accident when its driver somehow
managed to get the front of the train on one set of tracks and the
rear of the train on another, diverging, set of tracks, forcing the
middle of the train into the concrete divider.

Those two totally unrelated events were the two greatest mass casualty
incidents in DC in the past 99.5 years. And they happened, not just
on the same day, but in the same half hour.

A larger DC disaster happened just under a century ago. Like the
plane crash, and unlike the Metro crash, it was snow related. A
theater roof collapsed.

Before someone brings up 9/11, note that the Pentagon isn't in DC.

Speaking of 9/11, in Monday's Washington Post I read, about the recent
Bronx apartment fire, "The blaze was the deadliest in New York City
since the 1990 Happy Land social club disaster, which left 87 dead."
I emailed them a correction.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

On 1/13/22 7:45 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> Speaking of 9/11, in Monday's Washington Post I read, about the recent
> Bronx apartment fire, "The blaze was the deadliest in New York City
> since the 1990 Happy Land social club disaster, which left 87 dead."
> I emailed them a correction.

In mid-2013, a popular Boston website posted a map showing the locations
of murders that year in the city. I pointed out that it left out a
highly publicized triple murder in Copley Square.

I also wonder why lists of "largest mass shootings in US history" never
include Civil War battles.

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

On Fri, 14 Jan 2022 07:47:37 -0500, Gary McGath
<garym@REMOVEmcgathREMOVE.com> wrote:

>On 1/13/22 7:45 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> Speaking of 9/11, in Monday's Washington Post I read, about the recent
>> Bronx apartment fire, "The blaze was the deadliest in New York City
>> since the 1990 Happy Land social club disaster, which left 87 dead."
>> I emailed them a correction.
>
>In mid-2013, a popular Boston website posted a map showing the locations
>of murders that year in the city. I pointed out that it left out a
>highly publicized triple murder in Copley Square.
>
>I also wonder why lists of "largest mass shootings in US history" never
>include Civil War battles.

Or, presumably, Revolutionary War, or War of 1812, or Mexican/American
War, or Indian Wars ...
--

Qualified immuninity = virtual impunity.

Tim Merrigan

--
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Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> A larger DC disaster happened just under a century ago. Like the
> plane crash, and unlike the Metro crash, it was snow related. A
> theater roof collapsed.

The Knickerbocker Theatre roof collapse was exactly 100 years ago
today. It killed 98 people watching _Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford_
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343710>. It was due to a heavy load of
wet snow, combined with poor engineering. (For comparison, covid-19
currently kills about that many Americans every hour, 24 hours a day,
7 days a week. And yet millions of Americans are *still* refusing to
get vaccinated or to wear a mask. Sheesh!)

And it's snowing again here right now.

Today is also 36 years since the Challenger disaster, which was also
due to winter weather combined with poor engineering. One of its
seven astronauts has now been dead longer than he was alive.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.