10 DEAD, 30 HURT, 8 MISSING IN DEVON EXPLOSIONS

Source: unknown
Date: 3 April 1930

Blasts Shake Wide Area In Penna. And N. J.
Fire Destroys Big Fireworks Plant and Perils Whole Town

NEARBY HOMES BURN

Explosions that wiped out at least ten lives and injured more than thirty persons, some of them probably fatally, caused widespread damage, shook the countryside like an earthquake over a radius of twenty miles and reduced the plant of the Pennsylvania Fireworks Display Company Inc. at Devon to charred and splinted debris shortly before 10 A. M. today.

The scene of the explosions resembled a shell-swept battlefield. The roar of the blasts was followed by the frequent explosion of aerial bombs and other pieces of fireworks that were scattered over the twenty acre company plot, endangering police and firemen who searched the ruined buildings for the dead and injured.

A crowd estimated at 1000, including many relatives and friends of employes [sic], soon swarmed about the scene. They were kept behind the police line thrown around the property.

Scenes Are Harrowing

Harrowing scenes followed the explosions. Employes [sic], most of them girls and women, their clothes burned from their bodies and the flesh blackened by powder burns, ran screaming from the several wrecked buildings. The cries of others came from the ruins. The severely injured who managed to reach the open air collapsed after staggering a few feet.

Wayne Lewis, Berwyn, consulting chief of the Berwyn Fire Company, the first on the scene, arrived before the company. He said:

"When we got here we found crowds of terrified people running all over the road trying to escape the rain of bombs that kept falling on the highway and exploding. Men, women and children were huddled in little groups outside their homes which were collapsing. The scene was one resembling war."

Delayed by Bursting Bombs

"When the fire company got here it was impossible to hook up immediately to fireplugs because of the many bursting bombs. The third explosion occurred just as we arrived and in a few moments the air was filled with smoke, fire and falling debris. The employes [sic] in the plant rushed out, six of them with their clothes burned from their bodies."

"The first thing we did was to commandeer automobiles and take the injured to Bryn Mawr Hospital. The exploding bombs caused some of the injuries. The heavy pall of smoke made it appear that fire was spreading all over."

Town Thrown Into Panic

Devon itself was thrown into panic. Frightened residents ran from their homes. Some of them, dazed by the violent blasts, became hysterical and had to be given medical attention. The effect of the explosions on the nerves of those living near the factory was likened to shell shock.

Property damage was greater to the cluster of employes [sic] houses across Old Lancaster Pike from the plant. Some of these were wrecked, and all windows in them were shattered.

Fire that followed six explosions in the fireworks plans [sic] for a time threatened a section of Devon before firemen had the flames under control. Several houses near to the scene were flattened by the force of the explosion.

Of the ten dead whose bodies were recovered from the wrecked plant three had been identified about five hours after the explosion. At least five of the injured are expected to die.

Eight Unaccounted For

The number unaccounted for was placed at eight. Chief of Police George Woodward, of Paoli, in charge at the scene, said he believed that some of these would be found to have been killed in the plant.

The bodies removed from the wrecked plant were taken to a Malvern undertaking establishment. Most of them were burned beyond identification.

Thirty injured were taken to the Bryn Mawr Hospital and two were treated at the Delaware County Hospital. Five of those at the Bryn Mawr Hospital are believed to be dying.

The first explosion, one of two violent ones, occurred at 9:50 A. M. and was followed within half an hour by five more explosions, four of which were minor blasts. The heavier explosions echoed over the surrounding country like artillery. Intermittent explosions of fireworks sounded like the rattle of small arms.

Many Outside Plant Hurt

Many of the injured were persons living near the factory. Max Schwartz, a Pennsylvania Railroad employe [sic], was cut on the head when the first explosion wrecked a switch-tower nearby.

Antoinette Purizzo, 22, daughter of Luizo Purizzo, who was killed in the plant, was at work in the office and miraculously escaped injury. She was one of few who came out of the ruins unharmed. Purizzo was a brother-in-law of Alexander Vardaro, owner of the plant.

Vardaro also escaped uninjured from the office, which was wrecked.

Twelve houses on the Old Lancaster Pike, opposite the fireworks plant, were badly damaged. The walls of three of them were flattened as if they were constructed of cardboard. Six of these homes were owned by James Rosato, of Devon.

The Rev. Henry Mitchell, of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Wayne, opened the parish house of the church to provide shelter for those made homeless by the explosions.

Cadets Guard Property

Police and firemen from Main Line towns were called to Devon to restore order and protect property. About 250 cadets of the Valley Forge Military Academy, Devon, were sent to the ruined plant to guard the property and aid in the search for the dead and injured. Members of the Paoli American Legion Post also went to the scene.

Damage to homes and other buildings was widespread. Windows in the Strafford Public School, Gulph road and Old Eagle School road, were blown out. The frightened school children were calmed by the tenders. None was injured.

The scene at the Bryn Mawr Hospital was pathetic as relatives of employees of the plants hunted for the missing. The mother of Mary Hopkins, 17, of Berwyn, who was employed there, sought in vain for his daughter among the injured.

Two Girls Die in Embrace

One man killed was walking along the Old Lancaster pike when he was struck by a piece of flying debris. The bodies of two girls employed in the plant were found close together in one of the ruined buildings.

Father John H. Healy, of St. Katharine’s Church, Wayne, ministered to the dying at the scene. He was waiting for a, train at St. Davids station when the blast occurred, and rushed to the plant.

The explosion shook the country for miles around and was heard throughout Philadelphia, in Trenton, and as far as Hammonton, N. J. Windows were shattered by the blast as far away as the Germantown section of Philadelphia.

Fire apparatus from all Main Line towns were called to Devon to fight the fire that spread from the wrecked fireworks plant to surround¬ing homes and other buildings.

Fire started in the ruins of the wrecked buildings immediately after¬ward and hampered the efforts of firemen, police and residents in rescue work.

John K. Green, proprietor of the Devon Auto Repair Works, which was partly wrecked by the concussion of the blasts, said:

"The explosions shook the whole town. There was one, then another, and after that some more. It almost wrecked my place. Windows blew in and the whole place shook."

"I ran to the door. People were rushing out of their houses. Windows were broken all over and some roofs were caved in. Fire engines came from all over. The fire was spreading and for a while it. looked like the whole town was going to catch fire."

"I had to stay and look after my place. In a little while police arrived to protect the town, and ambulances came from towns near here."

Knocked Down With Six Children

Mrs. Philomena Braccia and her six children, who were in a house across the road, escaped injury though all of them were knocked down by the explosions. Their home was shaken, furniture was hurled about and the walls cracked and crumbled in places.

William J. Bohn, plumbing contractor, of Berwyn; his son, William, Jr., and Foreman Norman Beaver also escaped injury. They were at work in the basement of the factory office. They were knocked down as they ran upstairs and outdoors.

Several passengers on a Paoli local from Broad street were cut by glass as the explosion shattered windows of the train just as it passed the plant, about 200 yards away. They were given first aid on the train, which proceeded.

Victor Vardaro, 23, son of the owner and manager of the factory, was dazed by the successive blasts.

"I was working in the stone store-house, which adjoins the office," he said. "I heard a terrific noise. The next thing I knew I was on the road dazed. I don’t know what I did. I don’t know if I ran there. It was so terrifying that I couldn’t tell what I did. I couldn’t tell if there was one explosion or ten. I have no recollection of what took place those few moments."

"One hour before the explosion we received a shipment of twenty-five twenty-five-pound kegs of black powder. The busy season was just starting. I don’t know what caused the explosion or just where the first one occurred."

Find 200 Buildings Damaged

A survey of the area within a two-mile radius of the wrecked plant was completed this afternoon by George McNulty and John Scheitel, State police from Norristown. They reported that 200 buildings, most of them dwellings, were damaged by the explosions. The damage consisted largely of broken windows and plaster, damaged roofs and doors forced from their hinges.

Two, possibly, three men, were working in the dynamite building of the plant. Their building was wiped out and only a ten-foot crater marked its site. Anyone in that building at the time would have been blown to bits, it was said. Searchers found two feet among debris some distance away.

It was estimated that $50,000 damage was done to the superintendent's house, garage and. a barn on the estate of Mrs. Charles M. Lea, prominent society woman, located near the fireworks plant property.

One of the previously reported missing who was accounted for is Angelina Chicarelli, 18, of Devon. She is believed to be in a dying condition at the West Chester Hospital.

Forty windows in an old peoples’ home, three-quarters of a mile from the plant, were shattered and the forty-three patients frightened by the blasts. None of them was injured.

Reports that the explosions were heard many miles away came from all points of the compass. In Mount Holly, N. J., a pitcher was shaken from a shelf. Homes were rocked and windows broken in Abington Township and Jenkintown.

Charles Lipp, a highway patrolman, was thrown from his motorcycle as he rode along Gulph road in Devon.

The office of the Benjamin F. Benter Company, paper bags, located on the south side of the railroad tracks, opposite the plant, was damaged. A few of the 200 employees were cut by glass.

The force of the blast knocked a painter from his ladder while at work on the home of Thomas M. Chalfont, in Bloomingdale Avenue, Wayne, a mile and a half from the scene. He was not injured.

Volunteers recruited from the neighborhood aided police in policing the town, whose residents were in a state of great excitement. Firemen were fighting blazes at scattered points in an area near the site of the fireworks plant.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company halted all traffic on the Main Line shortly after the explosion.

All the plaster was knocked from the walls in a barber shop in Wayne, between two and three miles from the scene of the explosion.

Many large suburban homes are within a comparatively short distance of the fireworks plant. In some of these, the damage was extensive. Windows were broken, doors torn from their hinges, and in many cases, pieces of furniture blown outside the houses.

The explosion was distinctly audible in South Jersey and guards and telephone operators at the plant of the du Pont Powder Company at Gibbstown were kept busy for nearly an hour explaining to inquirers that the blast had not taken place at that point.

Hundreds of people drove to the Gibbstown works to reassure themselves that relatives or friends had not been injured.

References: When the Fireworks Factory in Devon Blew Up by Bob Goshorn, TEQ 16-3 (Fall 1978)