Raleigh, April 10—Dix State hospital for the insane to state and city a spectacular exhibition of “economy,” the south wing of 10 wards defenseless without sprinklers within, and pitiful in the water pressure from without, burned down before 50,000 people.
The state furnished the economy to the institution, and the city gave to the premises its feeble little flow of water. The Omnipotent God must have furnished the deliverance, for with little stamping, in hundreds of cases without even apprising the inmates of the destruction encompassing them, the attendants marched more than 600 people from the buildings and delivered them to places of safety where they remain tonight.
All kinds and conditions of men and women were led like a flock of sheep by the hand of some Moses and Aaron. There were all-American half-backs plunging and calling signals, there were nationally known newspaper men and preacher galore. Some of them were real stars in the elder day and some, of course, mere residents in the house of bedlam. Some more of them were horrible derelicts, criminally insane, and scores were bedridden and unable to turn over. But all and sundry wee picked up and carried out, the fierce ones were transported across the great hill to the state’s prison, while the large body of them were marched over the beautiful lawn to the hospital court yard, where they stood five hours and watched the state’s first asylum go down in a blaze that appeared never to have had any notion to give way to the men who did desperate battle with it.
Discovered in Ward Six
The fire was discovered in ward six at 12:45. For a few minutes the water ran well and confinement of the flames to this section seemed possible. In a few minutes the pressure was gone and the flames marched steadily toward the main building. Soldiers and college students had joined the firemen and delivery of the furniture after the patients was next undertaken. The great campus was literally filled with bed clothing, bureaus, paraphernalia of every kind. The rescue work went on until the flames cut the wards off and then the great crowd could only stand and look on.
The marching out was one of the most orderly processes ever witnessed here, and it is doubtful whether there is an ordinary school in the land which could have poured out its people with so little of confusion. Occasionally an inmate crouched in his room and refused to budge. A few made ack for the fire and declined to come out until dragged out; but on the whole the delivery was perfect and not one of the scores of violent patients was lost in the scuffle for safety. The women patients all came out in perfect order. The residents of the criminal insane colony were sent over to the state’s prison in big bonded warehouse delivery trucks which put them all in the prison yard without hurt of any kind. The courtyard was opened and the women mostly filled it. The more dangerous ones who do not belong in the prison place were sent to epileptic buildings and while this problem of housing the population was given its greatest concern, Dr. W.W. Faison, superintendent of the Goldsboro hospital, and Captain Nathan O’Berry, of his board, drove over to offer their institution for Raleigh’s patients. Downtown warehouses were turned over for storage and disorder was quickly turned into self control. Dr. Albert Anderson, superintendent, who was in Durham under subpoena as witness, was away from the hospital when the fire broke out. He made a desperate drive back to the city and barely missed an accident that might have been fatal. The Durham fire company sent over its best outfit and they remained with the Raleigh boys until the blaze gave way near 6 o’clock. Brockwell Had Warned State
The handicap in fighting the blaze on account of people or water is not accepted as a culpable act on the part of the city. The pipes into the grounds at Dix Hill are not regarded large enough and these were laid before the city took over the water plant. The water supply was running well, officials say, but the pipes which take the water into the ground are not adapted to present day needs. The city firemen at times were utterly helpless and streams of water falling on the building dropped as though they had fallen from a lawn hose. The insurance department hasn’t a moment’s hesitancy in laying the blame for the destruction within the buildings. For years Fire Marshal Sherwood Brockwel [Brockwell?] has been going over the state telling it how many fire traps it has. A thousand times he has declared that one of the days the asylum or some building peopled with the helpless is going to take midnight fire and there would be a slaughter of the innocents. Brockwell preached it in season and out. Last year he went before the general assembly and with Commissioner Wade asked that the legislature appropriate money for an extinguisher over the whole plant. The cost, he frankly admitted, would be considerable. It would require about $150,000 to rig up all the state buildings out there. But Mr. Brockwell showed that the cost of all this could be scattered over five years.
Commissioner Wade this afternoon declared that this sprinkler would have put down that fire in a minute. The central building on Dix Hill is valued at $890,000. Of course, that amount of money cannot replace that burned half of today. The state carried $445,000 insurance on the structure and $20,000 on the furnishings. But the burning today was not complete. It will hardly be possible to collect the full amount.
From the front page of The Smithfield Herald, April 13, 1926
Brockwel or Brockwell?
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073982/1926-04-13/ed-1/seq-1/
