School Tragedies and Disasters in America: Looking Back After Virginia Tech Tragedy

Most people don't want to think about the Virginia Tech and Columbine massacres, yet these are the first tragedies that do come to mind when thinking of school disasters. The absolute least we can do is remember the school disaster children of Columbine, and Bath, and Our Lady of The Angels and far too many others. Now we can add Virginia Tech.

The butchery of our children isn't something people want to talk about. People talk openly about many problem issues in our schools like drugs, teenage pregnancy, gang violence, and even the bird flu potential, but not the death sentences imposed on children who are guilty of nothing beyond going to school.

Monday, April 16, 2007, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, located in Blacksburg, Virginia became the record holder with at least 32 people murdered by a shooter, who also died.

Prior to Virginia Tech, the Columbine shooting murders were April 20, 1999. Columbine held the unwanted record of the worst school shooting in American history with 12 students and one teacher killed, and 24 others injured, plus the shooters committed suicide.

Each of these tragedies, and many others, is horrific and unimaginable for most of us. As bad as they are, we have experienced worse. Not only are they all literally sickening to think about, but the worst school tragedies are all but forgotten.

School shootings have commanded our attention, and certainly should. There are other school tragedies that should also never be forgotten by any American.

The record holder for the most deaths of school children and staff due to violent acts is the Bath, Michigan school tragedy of May 18, 1927. A school board member, upset because of an increase in taxes to support the school strategically placed homemade bombs throughout the basement of the school. Only half of the bombs went off, yet he killed 45 young people and school employees. He later killed himself in front of the school by blowing up his car which was full of explosives.

As bad as that was, the most deaths in a school disaster in American history is the Our Lady of The Angels fire in Chicago, Illinois. The fire cost the lives of 92 children and three nuns, on December 1, 1958. The super heated gases killed many of the children while still sitting at their desks with pencils in their hands. Death was so rapid they didn't even have a chance to react.

We all hope that something positive comes from all of these events. We can learn so many lessons from each of these school tragedies and I certainly hope we do. We can hope that as citizens and our powers-that-be keep prevention of such disasters on the front burner and never fail in terms of support. If all of us don't push for prevention and supporting resources we will suffer more of the same. History does tend to repeat itself. Although the support does have to be financial, it isn't entirely financial. It also has to be in terms of recognition of potential hazards, and producing policies and procedures on how to handle threats prior to, during and after school tragedies. We should settle for nothing less than all schools and governmental entities having plans in place and producing multi-agency assistance agreements, education, training and practical exercises. We should encourage parents of children in school to participate, and know first hand what is being done and why.

There is no question that school tragedies are topics people don't want to think about. Unfortunately we owe the victims and their families something. We owe them our emotional support by never forgetting what happened. We can provide them with emotional support by making sure they are aware of our feelings, that we suffered a loss too. We can provide support by insisting money, resources, policies, procedures, agreements, training, and communications are in place and constantly evaluated. We need to make sure each of these pieces of the puzzle are for prevention, not just dealing with an incident during and after the event. Each one of these people died needlessly, but that doesn't mean their deaths were in vain. Push for change.