GreekChat.com Forums - Alpha Chi Omega Sister Killed in Chicago Accident

This was such a tragedy. Thirteen young people, including a girl from my town, all with bright futures, perished in the accident. They and their families are in my prayers.

Apparently, in May, the city of Chicago had sent out a press release warning of the dangers of partying on back porches. Eric Zorn, of the Chicago Tribune, said he was too caught up writing his fourth column about the Glenbrook North hazing incident to help get the word out.

Media failed on porch alert, past accidents

Published July 1, 2003

As we apportion blame for Sunday morning's tragic porch collapse in Lincoln Park, I'll accept my sliver.

Anyone in the media who was really paying attention would have--should have--seen the relentless pattern in the news suggesting that porch parties were a disaster waiting to happen. Roughly once a year in recent times, a porch dramatically gave way injuring a clutch of revelers and providing unsettling images of bandaged heads and splintered planks.

Richard Roeper at the Sun-Times pointed it out in a column six years ago, but no one before or since had died. So it didn't seem urgent May 23 when Chicago Department of Buildings Commissioner Norma Reyes issued a news release reminding us that "every summer, porches collapse due to large parties and gatherings being held on unstable porch systems." I was too immersed that day in composing my fourth pensee on the Northbrook hazing incident to consider joining any public-safety effort.

Apparently, other journalists were also distracted. I didn't see or hear Reyes' announcement reported anywhere. So it's unlikely that imminent disaster was on the minds of the 12 who died and 57 who were injured in the moments before the three-story porch fell away under them during a party at 713 W. Wrightwood Ave.

They'd probably never considered that such porches "are not made for large assemblies and parties," as Reyes said Sunday at a news conference. "Back in May," she said, "I sent out a press releases to remind people that porches are to come in and out of. Egress and ingress is what we say. You need to be careful and watch how many people you have on those porches."

Right. Only Reyes didn't actually say that in May. Her news release--read it at ericzorn.com--didn't touch on the proper function or the load capacity of the glorified fire escapes that cling to the backs of many three-flats and six-flats in the city. It simply urged owners to have their porches inspected before entertaining on them.

This exhortation might not have made a difference in the porch collapse Sunday--early accounts indicate the structure was well-built--but it certainly would have had a better chance to be effective had it been part of a full-blown awareness campaign and not just another news release.

Mistakes were made. No one in the media was promoting the obvious reform--requiring porches above a certain height to post capacity warnings--nor was anyone in the bureaucracy.

Reyes wouldn't even call for such a measure Sunday: "I don't know if I would," she answered when a reporter proposed it. "I'd have to look at it, and, obviously, as you know, there are a lot of different variables that go into determining how many people should be [on a given porch at any one time]."

Well, yes. But you watch. The city will make those determinations and require those warnings. Because that's the way it goes. We shrug off disasters waiting to happen until they happen, then we beat our breasts and change our laws to try to prevent them from happening again.

Two recent examples: The deaths of 21 people Feb. 17 in a stampede that started when a security guard at the E2 nightclub on the South Side used pepper spray to break up a fight prompted legislation to ban the indoor use of pepper spray; the deaths of 100 people Feb. 20 in a blaze that started when a rock band used fireworks indoors at a Rhode Island club spurred legislation to limit the indoor use of pyrotechnics.

"It seems to be a natural tendency to wait for tragedy to provide the catalyst for change," said Alan McMillan, president of the National Safety Council. "There are counter-examples of simple, responsible planning saving lives, but they're hard to think of because we never hear about accidents that don't happen."

The 12 who died Sunday morning are victims of inertia, martyrs to the cause of public safety. Unknown others in accidents that now won't happen will owe their health and perhaps their lives to these young men and women whose deaths now seem utterly senseless.

When we apportion credit for the changes sure to come, give it all to them.