Three Minutes To Doomsday

By Romesh Ratnesar

It has been more than a decade since Great White recorded a recognizable hit, which is one reason the band was playing the Station, a cramped and sweaty nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., last Thursday night. The venue often is host to bands whose popularity peaked in the 1980s, and when Great White took the stage shortly after 11 p.m., the band decided to provide the audience with a reminder of its heavy-metal past. Sets of "gerbs"--sparking pyrotechnic fountains--shot up from the stage as the band kicked into its first song, Desert Moon. Within seconds, flames crawled up the foam-covered wall behind the band and spread to the 9-ft.-high ceiling. Thinking the blaze was part of the band's act, a few fans let out cheers.

Those cheers soon turned to screams. As heat and black smoke began to billow through the club, some people tried to make their way out, heading toward the Station's front exit door. Then the lights went out, prompting a mass rush toward what many believed was the only way out. Some patrons smashed windows with barstools. Several dozen made it out unscathed; the rest of the estimated 350 patrons were still desperately clambering for escape when the stage fire engulfed the entire one-story wooden building. Scores were burned alive or suffocated under the crush of people amassed near that main door.

Arthur Conway, 28, watched the opening seconds of the show from the back of the bar; after trying to make his way out, he found himself stuck under a pile of people struggling to move and screaming for help. "The people just pancaked in front of him," his sister Virginia Zoerb says. "The guy underneath pleaded for him to get out, but he just couldn't." Conway felt his shoes melt and his feet catch fire. At that instant, a patron who had just wriggled free grabbed Conway's arm and pulled him out. Conway turned back to the pile of people and saw them all burst into flames. Their hands reached out desperately for anyone to pull them free, but no one could. Their hands were all aflame. Conway was admitted to Rhode Island Hospital, suffering from burns and smoke inhalation.

Only with the light of dawn did the full, gruesome picture reveal itself. By Friday night, rescuers had recovered 96 corpses from the ruins of the Station. Some 200 people were injured, at least 25 critically. The calamity was the second deadliest nightclub fire in the U.S. in the past 50 years and the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in American history. It came just four days after 21 people were trampled to death during a panicked stampede at the E2 club in downtown Chicago (see box). As is usually the case, the tragedies were uniquely disastrous, each made more catastrophic by individual instances of horrendous decision making. But with the country already on high alert about the possibility of terrorist attacks against soft civilian targets, the proximity of last week's events added to the sense of insecurity. They also raised new questions about the extent to which safety regulations at the country's nightclubs are going unenforced. Robert Plotkin, president of the National Bar & Restaurant Association, says, "The fact that these types of incidents are so rare may lull operators into this sense that safety regulations are not terribly important."

Yet there were indications that the West Warwick calamity, at least, was not the product of lax regulation. The building was 60 years old and consisted of approximately 1,200 sq. ft. of concert space, a kitchen, a bar and a few pool tables off to the side. It passed a safety inspection as recently as December after infractions like malfunctioning exit signs were corrected. The venue did not have a sprinkler system, but Rhode Island state law does not require one in structures built before 1976. The club's owners, Michael and Jeffrey Derderian, were well regarded by West Warwick residents and police. One gesture made in part to mollify their neighbors may have proved disastrous. Last year the club hung soundproofing foam on the walls and ceilings to cut down on noise. But the material was highly flammable and caught fire almost as soon as Great White took the stage and the sparklers went off. Gerbs give off what is called cold fire, which, in spite of the name, can ignite flammable material.

Assigning ultimate responsibility for the disaster will hinge on determining who knew the band intended to set off fireworks. Local authorities say the Station did not have a permit to use fireworks, but the most intense scrutiny was directed at Great White, a largely forgotten hard-rock outfit that scored its biggest hit in 1989 with a cover of Ian Hunter's Once Bitten, Twice Shy. Through a lawyer, the owners of the Station said Great White's managers never informed the club that the band's act included pyrotechnics. And a co-owner said on Saturday the band did not ask for permission to use them.

Great White's lead singer, Jack Russell, returned Friday to the site of the destruction to search for the band's guitarist, Ty Longley, who has been missing since the fire broke out. (He is believed to be dead.) Russell told reporters that the band's tour manager always asks for permission to set off fireworks during shows. But even Russell did not sound convinced. "The club must've said yes, or we wouldn't have used them," he said. Owners of clubs in other cities came forward to say the band--on a nationwide tour to support a new greatest-hits album--did not consult with them before setting off fireworks during recent performances. Other clubs on Great White's tour said the band did seek permission but was turned down. Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri said Great White "used bad judgment" in shooting off the flaming fountains. "I would say that using pyrotechnics inside that building, you were asking for trouble," he said.

Investigators will also want to determine whether the club had instituted proper safeguards in the event of a fire. Survivors of the West Warwick blaze say nearly the entire crowd tried to escape through the front door of the club, in part because the Station's three other emergency exits were obscured by the thick black smoke. How many people could have made it out in time by exiting through another door will never be known. The intensity of the conflagration was staggering; witnesses say the building was entirely ablaze three minutes after the fire started. When rescuers arrived, it was gone.

By Friday in West Warwick, the inferno's violence had given way to an even more haunting industry, as the town went about the task of burying so many of its own. At the ruins, the clamshell crane shoveling away debris stopped every few minutes as yet another body was found. City-owned vans carried the remains of victims to the morgue, because West Warwick did not have enough ambulances or hearses for the job.

Everyone, it seemed, knew someone who was missing. Most of the dead have yet to be identified, and a score of survivors remain on the critical list at local hospitals. The state set up a grieving center for families and friends at a local hotel. There Red Cross workers assembled lists of names to determine who was missing, injured or killed in the fire. Gloria Collins was supposed to go to the concert with friends but backed out at the last minute. Now she is praying for a friend with burns on 80% of her body, a broken jaw from being pushed to the floor and boot prints all over her torso. Michele Foshey, 33, who lives across the street from the club, spent the day after the disaster trying to reach a friend who may have been there. "We just don't know," she says. Foshey held out little more hope than did the dazed survivors she watched flee the club, wandering around the parking lot and calling out to friends inside who never answered back. --Reported by Matt Kelly/West Warwick and Melissa August/Washington

With reporting by Matt Kelly/West Warwick and Melissa August/Washington