Evening star., 1916-07-30
SO, JERSEY CITY FIREMEN
KILLED BY BLAST, REPORT
Cites Ninety Miles Away Feel Force
Of Explosion; Reports From
Philadelphia and Camden.
PLANT VALUED AT 100000
Sizty-Nine Carloads Of Munitions
for Entente Allies. Said to Have
Been Ready for Shipment,
Believed Destroyed.

NEW YORK, July 80 (Sun-
day).-Thirty-three Jersey City
firemen are reported to have been
killed early this morning by ter
rife explosion in the plant of the
National Storage Company on
Black Tom Island near Com
munipaw, N. J., where they had
gone to fight fire resulting from
a terrific explosion just thirty
minutes earlier.
In the, storage company plant
are said to have been enormous
I quantities of ammunition con-
signed to the entente allies. The
entire plant is reported to have
been wrecked. The island ap-
peared at 3:3o o'clock to be COW
cred with sheet of flame. Access
to it is gained from the mainland
by bridge, over which run tracks
of the Central Railroad of New
Jersey.
Gixty-Nine Carloads Of Ammunition.
Sixty mine carloads of ammu-
milton are said to have been
stored in railroad tracks on the
island. All Of them are believed
to have been blown up.
Edmund L. Mackenzie, presi-
dent of the National Storage
Company, said at his home at
Plainheld, N. J., at $40 o'clock
this morning that he had just re-
ceived telegram informing him
that a great FIRE was raging in
the plant of his company, fol-
lowing an explosion.
The plant of the storage COM
pany consists of about twenty
five warehouses and three or four
covered piers, one of which is
powder pier, and Mr. Mackenzie
explained that there were no COM
.bustibles in the warehouses; He
expressed the belief from the
meager information he had re-
ceived that the explosion must
have been in trains of munitions
which had been run to the pow
der docks, awaiting removal on
lighters to ships anchored in the
bay. He declared the plant was
valued at about 100000.
Blazing Munition Barges Ahoat.
DR.. Joseph Wilson Of Immig.a ton
Hospital on Ellis Island reported to
Manhattan police headquarters at 3.45
this morning that two barges loaded with
ammunition lying alongside the dock at
Ellis Island were ablaze from stem to
stern. He said they had drifted down
the bay from the direction of Staten
Island Black Tom Island is about a
quarter of the way from, Ellis Island to
Staten IsIsnd. The patients in the Ellis
to another island Of the Ellis Island
group.
An Manhattan Island was shaken by
the explosions Windows Of buildings all
over the lower end Of the island were
shattered
Thousands Thrown Into Panic.
Thousands of persons swarmed into
the streets in all parts of the city
from buildings, subway exits and rail-
way stations, running about in a
panic. Many women became hysterical.
Police whistles were blown frantically,
but the police themselves did not know
what IL was all about.
:. The first explosion was followed
by a second. slightly less violent.
but which again shook all New York
and shattered many more buildings.
The thousands who had focked to the
streets after the first explosion were
reinforced by thousands more after the
second. Men. women and children left
their homes in their night clothing.
'o.. CT bed by the force Of the con-
cushion. which was felt even more
severely in Brooklyn than in New York
Women who were in Brooklyn streets
when the frs. explosion occurred were
thrown to tne pavement and many of
them became almost crazed with fear
Hospital Patients Alarmed.
Guests in the big uptown hotels ran
frantically into the corridors when the
windows In their rooms were shattered
Patients In all the city hospitals were
greatly alarmed and their attendants
sxpsrisncsd much dimcalty In quietins