[Scan-DC] 20th Anniversary of Air Florida Flight 90 Crash

[b_thom@juno.com]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 07:11:30 -0500 "Donaldson, Jim"
<Jim.Donaldson@abc.com> writes:
> and dont forget subway accident at same time

The 28th of January will mark the 80th anniversary of what had been, up
to the day of the Air Florida crash, the worst disaster in DC history,
the collapse of the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater. Search for
"Knickerbocker Theater collapse" at Google to find numerous references.
Here's one:
http://web.nbc4.com:8181/chap1/blizzard1922.html

>>
The blizzard of 1922 still stands as Washington's biggest snowfall of all
time. The snow began falling on January 26th around 4:20pm and did not
end until shortly after midnight on the 27th. The official measurement in
Washington was 28" with up to 36" in some areas. The storm covered the
Chesapeake Bay region with 22-28" of snow. 

The record 28" of wet snow created a heavy burden on the roofs of many
buildings in the area,  especially those flat-roofed buildings. The
Knickerbocker Theater was one of those buildings. During intermission,
around 9:00pm on January 28, 1922, the roof of the theater gave way to
the enormous weight of the snow. The roof collapse killed 98 people and
injured 133 more. This defining event is what now marks the storm as the
Knickerbocker Storm.
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