The National Personnel Records Fire of 1973

at 1216 a.m. on July 12th 1973 the olivet Missouri Fire Department received a call that there was a fire at the National personnel records Center in Overland Missouri they responded quickly they had firefighters on scene within four minutes but by then the top floor of the sixth or E building was already engulfed in flames eventually 42 fire districts would respond to put out the fire which burnt uncontrolled for 22 hours and destroyed between 16 and 18 million US military personnel records in addition of the firefighters poured millions of gallons on the roof which did further damage to files on the 5th and 6th floor according to the current archivist of the United States David Ferraro it was an unparalleled loss to the cultural heritage of our nation the 1973 fire at the National personnel records Center is history that deserves to be remembered the National personnel records Center building opened in 1956 after a series of mergers from other agencies after World War 2 the building was designed by the Department of Defense to consolidate records for the demobilized records branch the Air Force records center and the naval records management center the NPRC took custodianship of millions of records from these three centers and for a time whereas under the Department of Defense is a combined Army Navy Air Force facility in 1960 the facility was transferred to the responsibility of the general service administration and the three centers were consolidated into a single records center under the National Archives and records service the building in Overland was designed by the Detroit architectural firm of Hellmuth yamasaki and lime Weber first they did a study of existing facilities including the naval records center in Garden City New York and a Department of Defense facility in Alexandria Virginia the two facilities held different views about how best to protect the records an argument that reflected a deeper argument among librarians and archivists around the country the facility in New York strongly recommended the new facility be equipped with sprinkler systems but the Virginia standard argued that flooding was a greater danger and that sprinkler systems presented more risks than they were worth ultimately the finished building did not include a sprinkler system certainly the archives and records service had its work cut out for its record collection grew quickly after 1956 swelling from 38 million to 52 million records and consolidating both Marine Corps and Coast Guard records the job of managing the records included retrieving information for the public was made more complicated because the building house tenant offices for the FBI and other agencies as well as liaison services for the various military branches the surface struggled with the finish design which had huge storage spaces unbroken by any kind of firewall the service was also understandably concerned about the lack of a sprinkler smoke detection system which has decided as early as 1956 would be required in any new storage buildings 2,200 employees worked in the building by 1973 in the first hours of July 12th 1973 the spark that turned the issues into a catastrophe was lit and the top floor of the Center caught fire less than 20 minutes after the fire had been reported there were firefighters on the fifth floor of the building reporting heavy smoke and extreme heat on the sixth floor eventually 42 fire districts with a system fighting the fire all under the command of Community Fire Protection District Chief John gherkin and his deputy John Kennedy hose companies fought the fire from inside the building on the sixth floor but the growing fire and heavy smoke prevented them from pinpointing the fire the situation inside continued to deteriorate and by 3:15 a.m. the firefighters were recalled from the building the firefighters quickly faced an even greater problem my 6 a.m. they've been dumping water on to the fire for nearly six hours without stopping it and they were running out of water pressure at 612 firefighters asked the water company to increase the pressure possible shortly after the fire was spreading across the entire length of the building they called again to request more water pressure shortly before 9 a.m. but two hours later the entire roof of the building was aflame and before noon the west wall was leaning six to eight inches from the vertical miraculously the fire had not yet spread to the building's lower floors though the firefighters remain concerned that the rest of the building was at risk spite issues of water pressure the companies continued to pour water into the sixth floor from outside at 2:44 a.m. on July 14th almost 48 hours since the firefighters had first been withdrawn they were back on the sixth floor fighting the blaze from inside shortly before noon later that day one of the pump trucks failed completely after running content for more than 40 hours fire crews continued to pour water on the intermittent blaze for two more days to prevent it from rekindling and only on the morning of the 16th did the crews depart completely the crisis as far as the fire department was concerned was over but the work of the record service to recover from the disaster was only just begun even while the flames are still burning national archive and record service staff have been making decisions about the recovery on July 12th instructions were sent out to hold all mail coming to the NPRC on a typical day the Senate received thousands of requests for information as well as new records arriving at the center for the first time it was no small feat for the Postal Service and other agencies to comply fully the fire destroyed millions of records though the exact number isn't certain there were no copies or microfilm of the records and no index have been made for them additionally millions who were unknown to the Veterans Administration making it difficult to identify a precise number estimate suggests as many as 16 to 18 million official military personnel files were lost records which included information about a veteran's enlistment service assignments training qualification awards disciplinary actions and more 80 percent of the records belonging to discharge members of the army from 1912 to 1961 along with 75% of the records blowing into the Air Force personnel discharged between 1947 and 1964 some additional files from other branches were being sorted through for information requests they were also destroyed though the exact number is unknown some records were hurried out of the building on July 12 as well including computer records which represented an index to much of the collection operating records of the center itself and a hundred thousand reels of microfilm of mourning reporting from the Army in 1912 to 1959 and the airforce 1947 to 1959 these records would prove invaluable to the recovery effort even in the early days of recovery the National Archives and records service was committed to preserving what records they could that can be used to reconstruct the service record of veterans whose records have been destroyed on July 23rd ten days after the fire a federal property management bulletin went out to all government agencies stop any destruction of any records that could be used to reconstruct the data once they understood would have been lost the bulletin was amended data only considering the lost data and interagency committee was formed with representatives from the different branches records groups to determine what kinds of records each had that might be used to reconstruct the damaged or destroyed service records an article from the American archivists the year after the fire noted that an impressive spirit of cooperation characterized these sometimes competing goals of saving records from the 6th floor demolishing and repairing the building and the stringent safety measures that were put into effect after the recovery effort would not be easy the fire had almost totally destroyed the 6th floor starting concrete columns the roof had mostly collapsed shelving units were twisted by the heat and seemingly intact filing cabinets held only small charred piles of hash complicating all of that was water millions of gallons have been poured on the building in the initial fire firefighters continued to pour water on till the end of the month to prevent sporadic kindling pipes on the sixth floor continued to leak until the water could be cut off it was inches deep in storage areas on every level of the building damaging records all over hot and humid st. Louis weather encouraged the growth of mold on the already vulnerable collection their first objective was to remove the records they could but the damage had ruined the building's electrical system and mobilizing the elevators and escalators employees made do by putting dish soap on the rubber handrails of the escalators to send them into excellent conveyor belts eventually an external elevator a buck hoist was installed outside to move the records out more quickly the first estimates of damage were appalling some suggest only 10% of the records on the 6th floor could have survived ultimately they find the damage was worst to the army records between 1912 and 1960 in the airforce between 1947 and 1964 they hired a company to abolish the sixth floor which would give them access to some areas that were totally blocked off by damage they found that in the most heavily damaged areas a high volume of water had actually protected the records from the fire especially on Laura shells which despite the metal twisting in the heat had been too wet to ignite so soaked but comparably intact records were found with increasing frequency as the demolition continued ultimately more than 6 million records were recovered from the building and many of them needed to be dried they were first sent to a civilian storage facility in milk cartons to help them air dry they were sprayed with a solution written bold while they look for a better solution they learned that the McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation in st. Louis had vacuum drying facilities originally designed to simulate vacuum conditions for the Apollo mission after testing it the government set the nearly 90,000 cubic feet of Records to three chambers at McDonnell Douglas later also to a NASA facility in Ohio 2000 containers could fit inside the chamber and nearly eight pounds of water removed from each container almost eight tons of water each time the chamber was filled the National Archives and records service Nick put the recovered files into the drone index called the beat file as the records were dried punch cards were prepared to make the surviving records more easily accessible the Center was given computer access to the indices of the VA to help reconstruct service records and as the center returned to normal functions a new group was created the records input and reconstruction branch dedicated to solving the problems caused by the lost records after the fire the building was brought up to the National Archives and records service standards of fire safety including smoke detectors and fire suppression systems the storage areas were also air-conditioned as the mold spores were made dormant by the drawing process that remained a risk if they are reintroduced to st. Louis's humidity today records taken from the be file are still checked for mold and remediation procedures are in place for those records show any signs of mold investigation into the fires caused were carried out even while the fire was burning but despite extensive investigation they could not determine precisely the fire's cause point of origin or time of ignition interviews with employees found nothing the employees who have been on the sixth floor only 20 minutes before the fire had noticed nothing unusual newspaper reports suggested the possibility of cigarettes thrown careless into trash cans but no evidence of this was ever found the FBI could not determine the cause except to rule out arson while the GSA suspected an electrical short but said that the damage to the 6th floor was so severe that they didn't think an exact cause could ever be found the loss of these millions of records represent an incalculable loss to millions of Americans and their loved ones although some of the records have been recovered many of them are simply lost forever and perhaps most grievously veterans who lost medical records have faced all sorts of challenges because those records are missing future generations who want to know about their loved ones might not even be able to find out exactly what was lost in the fire despite all efforts to try to retrieve the information even today 46 years after the fire the senator expends the equivalent of more than 40 full-time personnel each year who worked exclusively on responding to requests in pulping records lost in the fire the monumental effort and lessons learned in this recovery have and will continue to affect the way that we store preserve and duplicate these records that are so vital to the history and legacy of our nation the individuals stories of these service personnel are smaller parts of broader events and the losses at once both very personal and national tragedy the National personnel records Center was moved from its facility in Overland Missouri in 2005 to a new facility in Spanish Lakes Missouri and continues to be an invaluable resource to veterans genealogists and historians I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on T spring comm and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 99,872

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, us history, national archives and records administration, overland, missouri, records fire

Id: dngumAV1OLs

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2019