The Press., 1883-05-17
LIGHTNING AMONG THE PETROLEUM vATs.

The National oil storage works at Con- munipaw, Jersey City, were struck by lightning last Tuesday, and $6O, 900 worth property was burned, including 12 tanks holding 20, 900 barrels of crude oil each, a store-house Mith 30, ,OOO barrels of refined oil, the engine-house, office, wharves, IS cars, 6 barges and dredger. Five men and boy lost their lives.
 The storm raging at the time was one of the most violent which has been experi- enced there for years. The lightning played close to the earth, and every flash of light shot almost perpendicularly down. ward Soon after 3 a. m. bolt struck one of the tanks on the shore at Cavan point. The next instant there was burst of flame to the skies, with dense volume of black smoke in it's wake All the sur rounding country was shaken by the thun- ders of the explosion. The sides of the great iron tank gave way, and the flaming and blazing oil, beaten and spread and foated by the falling torrent of rain, stlrged over the shore and around the bases of l three other tanks that stood close by. The inevitable explosion came. The gases freed by the heat demanded egress, and almost simultaneously the covers of the | three great tanks were shot heavenward in blaze of light The sides burst, and sea of flame rolled from each half mile down to the river, among barges and ves- sells used in the company's service. The tide was at low ebb, all the vessels were aground, and it was impossible to haul | them out Coursing in another direction, l the streams of fire ran into the brick store house at the northeasterly boundary of the yard. The iron door in the wall of the building became red-hot and the thousands of barrels of refined oil inside burst, with series of sharp explosions.
 | When the fremen arrived the tank in which the flames originated was ablaze. 1 They saw that all effort to save 1t must prove futile, and their attention was turned | to the three great tanks close by. The several tanks in the yard feed one another by system of underground pipes. It was feared that through these pipes the fame might be communicated, and the work of the moment seemed to be the severance of the connection between the blazing tank and the others. Four employees of the | storage company ventured between the 1 threatening row of tanks on one side and fhe blazing tank on the other to do it. The fremen followed them, but some dis 1 tance behind. The flaming oil burst from the sides of the burning tank and surged around the bases of the others. An order was given to the fremen to retire, but they had not fairly got out of the danger before the dreaded explosion came. The whole hill was shaken by it. Some of the fire men and citizens who had gathered with them were prostrated by the shock. The scattered blaze pursued them so closely that one of the retreaters had his hair burned off, The iron lid of one of the tanks was carried mile away and dropped down on West Side avenue A heavy beam, caught up in the midst of the flame, was hurled high in air, and fell, a flaming torch, upon hot-house thaee-quarters of a mile distant. Showers of sparks and fragments
 of burning wood and metal, heated to 8
 white heat, filtered Ocean avenue, over
 half mile away, so that travel there be-
 came unsafe. Volumes of smoke, of inky
 blackness, hung like 8 pail over the bril- liant blaze beneath. The heat became so
 intense that the crowds of spectators that
 lined the hill hundreds of yards away had
 to retreat When the fremen turned, af-
 ter their retreat from the threatened ex-
 plosion, sheets of flame covered the gap through which they had escaped, and no trace of the four men who had been with them could be found.