15 years after
The Station nightclub fire.
We haven’t learned.
And we probably won’t. Why?
Well to be honest, I think it’s just inevitable. Our culture, human nature.
John Barylick puts it best. How many people have to die before the world cares? 100 deaths in that fire wasn’t enough apparently? How about 242 in the Kiss nightclub fire in 2013? No? Well apparently the 492 deaths of the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire must’ve been forgotten, because while there was a drastic decrease in nightclub disasters in the next few decades, an alarming amount since then have suffered from similar disasters since 1990.
It doesn’t even apply to just nightclubs, or even building fires. It surprises me still just how many individuals I’ve seen and met have never heard of the Oklahoma City bombing. Is it simply just the transition to the new generation? So far it seems like everyone knows about 9/11. Is that what it takes? 2,996 is the magic number? Or just give it a few years and Generation Z won’t know about it until high school or even college? Maybe even not at all until it’s mentioned in passing conversation?
It worries me because even 9/11… a tragedy almost universally considered, by us Americans, to be caused by those doggone terrorists, has another side to it that isn’t mentioned at all, and without being a conspiracy nut, many more lives could’ve been saved that day.
But even looking through those tragedies through my lens, a reasonable person might tell me, “Well Josh, if there weren’t pyro used in that club the fire wouldn’t have happened! If the killers didn’t have guns the shootings wouldn’t have happened! If those terrorists didn’t hijack those planes 9/11 wouldn’t have happened!”
Well of course, but the “easiest” solutions (no indoor pyro, ban all guns, no immigrants) wouldn’t actually solve the underlying problems. They only address one aspect of the problems, and, unfortunately, the other factors still make their own contribution in the recipe for disaster which can reach that fatal critical mass.
So why even care about The Station nightclub fire? What’s so special about it? Viewing the video link I posted above seems like an normal footage of a fire. People die, and aside from the screams of people burning alive, to the average
hardened Internet Joe, nothing too disturbing about it. “Woo, fire spreads quickly! I was taught that in elementary school! Who cares?”
Well, from a certain perspective yes. But I think that tragedy is one of the most drastic and most quintessential examples of how multiple factors and frankly, petty decisions by others, and most of all,
negligence, can affect so many lives, and all it takes is all those factors put together, and you have a sudden recipe for disaster that, if you aren’t quick, will make you just another statistic to be reported. And you wouldn’t even know about it.
So how is that relevant? I mentioned shootings and even 9/11. Sure there was a fire in 9/11, but a little far-fetched to relate it to a comparably small-time disaster. And shootings? I mean other than the sparks from the guns there ain’t anything remotely related to pyrotechnics. And what about other tragedies?
Well… I wish I could elaborate more, but I honestly ran out of inspiration by now. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so naturally uncaring. :/