Norwich bulletin., 1911-02-02
Property Damage it is Estimated Will Hard
 1y Fall Below $750,O0O
SHOCK FELTATLONG BRANCH 40 MILES
Lower Portion of Manhattan Borough Shaken from Street Level to the Top of the Singer Tower Severe Damage in Brooklyn, Ellis Island, and on Staten Island-Direct Cause of the Explosion will Probably Never Be Known-Thirty Lives Lost.

New York. Feb. IA cargo of dyna- mite in transit for freight car to the hold of a lighter moored at Pier No. z. Communipaw, N. J., exploded at just one minute past noon today, 150 yards south of the Jersey City terminal of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, and in the widespread ruin that fol- lowed seven men are known to have been killed. seven more are known to be missing. hundreds were wounded and varying reports leave from fifteen 10 twenty more unaccounted for.
 The Dead.
 The known dead are:
 Brunette. Robert. New York. captain of the tug John Twohey, blown from his wheel house.
 Morro. Giantonmo, deck hand killed on the barkentine Ingrid
 Morro. Michaele. his brother.
 McNeil, Charles, engineer of yard locomotive, blown from his cab.
 Barbour, Robert, incoming Jersey Central passenger, killed by falling glass.
 Armstrong, James. captain o f the powder boat Whistler, owned by the American Storage and Delivery Com pany of New York
 Unknown man, one of the crew.
 The Missing.
 Traver, Edward. master of the steam lighter Katharine W.; Heinze- man, Louis, engineer of the katha- rine w: Askley. Frank, crew; Ackley. Henry. crew; Stolpe, oscar. crew; London, James, crew; Belgian, Louis, crew.
 Thought to be missing: Twenty unknown laborers just getting ready 10 eat luncheon on Pier No. z when the explosion came.
 $75o,0oo Property Loss.
 Thirty seems to bo conservative estimate of the dead, and the prop erty damage will hardly fall below
 Csuos of Explosion Unknown.
 The cause of the explosion is va riously attributed to the dropping of q case of dynamite and to boiler ex- plosion on a boat. Just what was the direct cause will probably never be known.
 Damage Widely Scattered.
 The New Jersey Centrars terminal was wrecked; three ferryboats in the siips wers torn and splintered: lower hanhatten. across the river, was shaken from tho street level to the top of the Singer tower; severe dam age was done in Brooklyn. Staten Is- land and the immigrant detention sta ton on Ellis Island; the shock was felt on Long Island in Amityville, 35 miles distant. and fin New Jersey at Long Branch, 70 miles distant. The damage is so widely scattered that it ts impossible as yet to estimate it more than roughly. but in Manhattan alone 1t is placed at s100.000. at Ellis Island at from 310,000 to s25,000. and in all three quarters of a million appears to be a fair estimate.
 Lighter and Crew Vanished.
 The lighter receiving the dynamite, the Katherine w. owned by James Healing of Jersey City, vanished ut Tar1W with her nf including the master, Edward Traver. Alongside of her lay the lighter Whist Ter owned by the American Storage and Delivery Company of New York; she was so badly shattered that she sank with her crew of two, while the Swedish steel barkentine Ingrid. biscuits toss to the south, was strip ped of her rigging and the lives of two deck hands aboard were stuffed out Fragments of one mans head was found swinging high on d tangled piece of rope.
 Dynamite Being Unloaded.
 The Katherine W. was tied to the outer end of the pier and d crew of dock hands was unloading conslgn- ment of fifty pound boxes from two freight cars to the lighter when the explosion occurred. The Dupont Nem- ours Powder Company were the ship pers, but to whom the explosive was consigned could not be definitely certained tonight. One report said to contractors up the river for blasting along the Palisades; another that it was bound for Havana. Theoretically dynamite will not explode either from shock or fire but only from a combin- htion of both-the dctoration produced by a percussion cap. A boiler expJo- sion would have duplicated the effect of the percussion cap. What followed is the best possible example of the HhimSifS of dynamite.
 The Katherine w. simply disap- peared: not a splinter of her has been found. The Whistler dissolved into Hreckage. Only her flag pole has been found. The freight ear went up in pun of dust On the rear deck of the barkentiDe 1ngrid were found a pair of iron trucks. They may be the trucks of the dynamite car or one of the other four cars standing near that which were also torn to bits.
 Fifty yards back stood another car of dynamite. The explosion ripped the roof off of it and broke in the doors but the dynamite itself held true and rested quiescent in its wooden boxes.
 Strange Freaks of the Explosion.
 What might have happened had the second car added it's chained forces to the first can hardly be guessed. the visible terrors of the actuality were enough On board the 1nsrid the steel mizzen mast snapped off above the lower yard and the tangled wreokage came turnbling about the decks. Every thing above the mizzen mast was lev eiled flat but the steel plates of the hull held and showed not even d mark. For one hundred feet the pier-end itself was utterly demolished. The planking seemed to have been ground to powder. Girders, planking. cross stays. all the massive framework of a pier built to uphold the locomotives and lOa1Rd froina nl1llifU Over the broken edges twisted the steel rails of track. A steel gondola car on the southermost track looked like an old hat that had been used by boys for football.
 All about were strange freaks of the explosion. One freight car had the roof blown inward as it it had been crushed by q falling boulder but the