The following November, a city ordinance was passed mandating retrofitting sprinkler systems within five years in all Greek housing. It was too late for us, but maybe many lives will be saved since this fire, the one at Seton Hall, and the one at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, has brought attention to the need for sprinklers. We learned that Ben would be alive today if the house had sprinklers. We learned that there have never been multiple deaths in the United States in a building equipped with functioning sprinklers. Other safety features, such as fire alarms, are good, but they do not buy the much-needed time to escape a fire that sprinklers provide.
Sprinklers also keep a fire contained to a small area.
Two years before the May 12 th fire at North Carolina, Fire chief Dan Jones had gone to University officials and alerted them to the fire hazard that these old houses had become and they needed to consider sprinklers. He was told he was overreacting and that the cost was just not affordable. Mrs. Woodruff so eloquently sums up my feelings, as a parent. I want to make the changes a reality, not only for the students of this generation, but also for the future. When my sons leave for college in 10 years, I want to know that we made their future a safer one.