The Indiana State Fairgrounds Explosion

A personal account

Of all the sources I used while researching this story, I’d most recommend this one. It’s a piece in the Courier Journal that follows the story of Janie Hensley – a girl who had been taken to see the Holiday on Ice show as a 13th birthday present.

It is, of course, quite a harrowing read – but it gives a real picture of the chaos in the hours after the explosion, and just how much the life of someone (even if they survive) can be changed by an event like this.

The debate over LPG

One thing that I didn’t have space to cover in the main video was the brief debate that existed over the cause of the explosion. For some time after the blast, representatives of the LPG industry raised doubts over whether or not it had, indeed, been caused by LPG. A report issued the National Liquid Petroleum Gas Association argued that while the haze seen by the manager moments before the explosion was consistent with LPG, it could also have been caused by a broken steam line.

The suspect tanks were analysed at Purdue University. Attorneys representing the Coliseum argued that they should be allowed to be present at the tests, but were refused. And, even more suspect, some unknown men who claimed to represent a local law firm were ejected from the site of the explosion after spending hours sifting through the wreckage in the days after the disaster.

This wasn’t, by any means, an organised conspiracy. At the time it is likely that there was some degree of doubt about the source of the explosion, and – quite naturally – those who feared they might be liable were keen to do what they could to shift blame and explore other possibilities. Looking back, we have a firm grasp of what happened… but getting to that firm grasp was no easy process!