Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire
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Authors: John Barylick
Tags: #Performing Arts, #Theater, #General, #History, #United States, #State & Local, #Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA), #New England (CT; MA; ME; NH; RI; VT), #Music, #Genres & Styles, #Technology & Engineering, #Fire Science
University Press of New England Hanover and London
University Press of New England
www.upne.com
© 2012 John Barylick
All rights reserved
MAMA TOLD ME NOT TO COME
Words and Music by RANDY NEWMAN
Copyright © 1966, 1970 (Copyrights Renewed) UNICHAPPELL MUSIC INC.
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book, contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Suite 250, Lebanon NH 03766; or visit
www.upne.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Barylick, John.
Killer show : The Station nightclub fire, America’s deadliest rock concert / John Barylick.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61168-265-6 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-61168-204-5 (ebook) 1. Station (Nightclub : West Warwick, R.I.)—Fire, 2003. 2. Nightclubs—Fires and fire prevention—Rhode Island—West Warwick. 3. Fires—Rhode Island—West Warwick. 4. Great White (Musical group) I. Title.
F89.W4B37 2012
974.5'4—dc23 2012002561
FOR THE VICTIMS
It’s gonna be a killer show.
—Jack Russell, lead singer of Great White, February 20, 2003
killer
adj
. (orig. US) 1 [1970s+] terrific, amazing, effective.. 2 [1980s+] ghastly, terrible.
—
Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang
, 1998
CONTENTS
1. Sifting the Ashes
2. Mill Town Watering Hole
3. Rock Impresarios
4. Only Rock ’n’ Roll
5. That Ain’t No Way to Have Fun, Son
6. Lucky Day
7. Yours, in Fire Safety…
8. Suds, Sparks, and Sponsorship
9. Film at Eleven
14. A Snowball’s Chance in Hell
24. “First, Survival; Then, Function; Then, Cosmetics”
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Appendixes
List of Persons Killed in the Station Nightclub Fire
Outcome of Criminal Prosecutions
Outcome of Civil Lawsuits
Notes and Sources
Index
Illustrations
Floor plan of The Station, with location of individuals at 11 p.m. on February 20, 2003. (Diagram courtesy of Jeff Drake, Drake Exhibits)
CHAPTER 1
SIFTING THE ASHES
FEBRUARY 21, 2003, DAWNED STUNNINGLY CRISP
and cold in New England. Over a foot of fresh snow had fallen the previous two days, and conditions were what skiers jokingly call “severe clear” — cloudless blue skies, bright sun, temperatures in the teens, and windchill in single digits. It was, in short, postcard picture-perfect.
On this morning, however, the images being snapped by news photographers in the town of West Warwick, Rhode Island, were hardly Currier and Ives material.
In the southeast corner of town sat a nightclub called The Station — or what was now left of it. At present, it consisted of a smoldering footprint of rubble at the end of a rutted parking lot, surrounded by banks of dirty snow into which burning bar patrons had blindly thrown themselves just eight hours earlier. The site resembled the scene of a battle, fought and lost. Discarded half-burned shirts littered the lot, along with soiled bandages and purple disposable rescuers’ gloves. Hearses had long since supplanted ambulances, the work of firefighters having shifted from rescue to recovery.
Alongside the smoking remains of the club, a hulking yellow excavating machine gingerly picked at the building’s remains. Its operator had demolished many fire-damaged buildings before, but none where each “pick” of the claw might reveal another victim.
Yellow-coated state fire investigators and federal agents wearing “
ATF
” jackets combed the scene, while a department chaplain divided his time between consoling first responders and praying over each body as it was removed. Only snippets of conversation among the firefighters could be overheard, but one — “bodies stacked like cordwood” — would become the tragedy’s reporting cliché.
And there was no shortage of reporters covering the fire. By late morning, over one hundred of them huddled in a loose group at the site, faces hidden by upturned collars, their steamy exhalations piercing the frigid air at
irregular intervals. Stamping circulation into their cold-numbed feet, they awaited any morsel of news, then, fortified, drifted apart to phone in stories or do stand-ups beside network uplink trucks.
Following protocol, all but designated spokesmen avoided contact with the press. The area had immediately been declared a crime scene, and yellow tape, soon to be replaced by chain-link fence, kept reporters far from what remained of the building itself. During the first daylight hours, news helicopters clattered overhead, their rotor wash kicking up ash and blowing the tarps erected by firefighters to shield the grisly recovery effort from prying eyes. That vantage point was lost after one chopper got so low it blew open body bags containing victims’ remains. Immediately, the
FAA
declared the site a “no-fly” zone. Good footage would be hard to come by.
That is, good
post-fire
footage. Video of the fire itself, from ignition to tragic stampede, had already been broadcast throughout the United States and abroad, because a news cameraman happened to be shooting inside the club. The world had seen the riveting images: an ’80s heavy-metal band, Great White, sets off pyrotechnics, igniting foam insulation on the club’s walls; concertgoers’ festive mood changes in seconds to puzzlement, then concern, then horror as flames race up the stage walls and over the crowd, raining burning plastic on their heads; a deadly scrum forms at the main exit.
Now, all that remained were reporters’ questions and a sickening burnt-flesh smell when the biting wind shifted to the south. Among the questioners was Whitney Casey,
CNN’S
youngest reporter, who just hours earlier had exited a Manhattan nightclub following a friend’s birthday celebration. Dance music was still echoing in her sleep-deprived head when she arrived at a very different nightclub scene in West Warwick. Casey had covered the World Trade Center collapse as a cub reporter on September 11, 2001. From its preternaturally clear day to desperate families in search of the missing, the Station nightclub fire assignment would have eerie parallels to her 9/11 reporting baptism.