At 3:17 p.m. on March 18, 1937, a natural gas leak beneath the London
Junior-Senior High School in the oil boomtown of New London, Texas,
created a lethal mixture of gas and oxygen in the school's basement. The
odorless, colorless gas went undetected until the flip of an electrical
switch triggered a colossal blast. The two-story school, one of the
nation's most modern, disintegrated, burying everyone under a vast pile
of rubble and debris. More than 300 students and teachers were killed,
and hundreds more were injured. As the seventy-fifth anniversary of the
catastrophe approaches, it remains the deadliest school disaster in U.S.
history. Few, however, know of this historic tragedy, and no book, until
now, has chronicled the explosion, its cause, its victims, and the
aftermath. Gone at 3:17 is a true story of what can happen when school
officials make bad decisions. To save money on heating the school
building, the trustees had authorized workers to tap into a pipeline
carrying "waste" natural gas produced by a gasoline refinery. The
explosion led to laws that now require gas companies to add the familiar
pungent odor. The knowledge that the tragedy could have been prevented
added immeasurably to the heartbreak experienced by the survivors and
the victims' families. The town would never be the same. Using
interviews, testimony from survivors, and archival newspaper files,
Gone at 3:17 puts readers inside the shop class to witness the spark
that ignited the gas. Many of those interviewed during twenty years of
research are no longer living, but their acts of heroism and stories of
survival live on in this meticulously documented and extensively
illustrated book.