LAS VEGAS FIGHTS FOR ITS LIFE--AGAIN
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Will Las Vegas survive?
A city struggling with its worst disaster, the question rattled residents 40 years ago this week.
Few could have imagined a worse scenario after the MGM Grand hotel fire on Nov. 21, 1980. It left 85 dead and injured almost 700.
Then along came 2020.
A Covid-19 pandemic raised the stakes and the death toll. By November, more than 1,600 had died from the virus in Clark County.
On the day of the fire, a ringing phone woke me at 7:30 a.m. at my beach house in San Diego, where I was a reporter for the Associated Press.
A news executive in AP headquarters in New York City didn’t mince words.
“Get to Las Vegas as soon as possible,” he said. “The MGM Grand hotel is on fire. Death toll could be 400.”
A plane was chartered. My San Diego AP colleague, photographer Lenny Ignelzi, and I joined an army of journalists assigned to the second-deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.
After renting a car at the Las Vegas airport, my plan was to drive to the command center near the MGM and receive instructions from my AP team members..
But plans change quickly in the heat of a disaster. It happened at a stoplight in front of the still-smoking MGM Grand.
With traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard bumper-to-bumper from curiosity seekers, I was waiting for the light to turn when I noticed a school bus pull up to the intersection and turn into the northbound lane in front of the Barbary Coast. The bus sat there. Some unusual activity near the bus got my attention. The sidewalk in front of the Barbary Coast was crowded with pedestrians, many of whom were applauding and reaching up to shake hands with occupants of the bus.
It dawned on me I had hit a jackpot: the bus was filled with fire fighters.I followed the bus to the fire station and spent an hour filling my spiral notebook (which I’ve kept on my book shelf). I had a week’s worth of extraordinary survival stories.
One stood out: I kept hearing snippets about a man in a black hat who was seen descending 14 stories from a rope. A lifeline, it had been thrown from the hotel roof where it was anchored to one of nearly a dozen helicopters from Nellis Air Base.
A local TV station had captured an eight-second clip of the heart-stopping escape.
In those super-adrenalized precious seconds, the man had become an inspirational symbol for his determination to live. I had to find him.
My search started at the Barbary Coast (now the Cromwell). Someone back at the fire station had said the small casino was inundated with hundreds of people who had sought shelter after fleeing the MGM Grand in 40-degree temperatures.
While walking past the gaming tables, I heard someone call out “Hey, AP man!” It was Joe Bono, a gregarious pit boss at the Barbary Coast (now The Cromwell). I had met him a year earlier while working on a feature story during a temporary assignment to fill in for Pat Arnold, the correspondent who was in charge of the AP office.
Bono confirmed the story of the huge crowd. Bursting with pride, he revealed that the hotel’s management had made the decision to shut down the gaming operation to take care of the flood of evacuees, many of whom were still in their night clothes or wrapped in blankets. Anything they wanted -- food or hot drinks-- were on the house. Cocktail servers and keno runners were instructed to help however they could. It was a touching story: Michael Gaughan’s tiniest casino on the Las Vegas Strip had the biggest heart.
While chatting with Bono, I asked him if he knew anything about a man in a black cowboy hat who came down a rope. “I saw that on TV,” he said. “He came in here and did a radio interview.” The radio station, he said, was in the basement of the Barbary Coast. I found it and knocked on a door. A deejay responded and said he was under the impression the guy was staying at a downtrodden motel just south of the Dunes hotel and casino..
I SPENT THE NIGHT AT THE BARBARY COAST AFTER COVERING THE MGM FIRE. AT RIGHT: MGM ROOM KEY 1410, GIVEN TO ME BY SURVIVOR RANDY HOWARD IN 2008 AFTER HE RETURNED TO LAS VEGAS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE FIRE.) PHOTO: NORM CLARKE
The lone receptionist at the motel confirmed the man was staying there. She recognized him from a TV interview. He checked in an hour after the fire. His name was Randy Howard of Silvis, Ill, she said. She repeatedly called his room for an hour while I wrote another story. She had a feeling he had left. She checked. Sure, enough the room was empty. I was crestfallen, but I had the telephone number he called in Illinois and would try to reach him later.
The next day I called the number. An older woman answered the telephone. It was his mother. He had traveled all night, she said, and just arrived home. He was exhausted. Call back in 4-5 hours, she said. An hour later, Howard called back and agreed to an interview.
He was far from your typical hero. A drug dealer on the run, he fled Illinois with a suitcase stuffed with cash and a plan to spend the rest of his life in Mexico. He wasn’t just trying to stay ahead of the law. He left behind a fiance and a pregnant girlfriend.
I moved onto yet another story I heard in the fire station: two MGM Grand bakers survived by taking refuge in a walk-in refrigerator. After shivering for more than two hours while the fire raged around them, they decided to make a run for it down a smoke-darkened corridor. I was able to track down one of them. Don Feldman, a 47-year-old father of five had left an explanatory note on a paper cake liner. They had nearly run out of air in the cooler located near the epicenter of the fire, a deli. Twenty years later, after I moved to Las Vegas, I reunited with Feldman over lunch.
He wasn’t the only survivor who left a hand-written farewell message. I got a tip that led to a telephone interview with Iowa doctor Jose V.G. Angel, who had a remarkable close call in his room. Convinced he wasn’t going to survive, he wrote out his will and a note to his family and tucked the papers in a shoe. Before he could throw it out the window, toward fire personnel on the ground, he heard a knock on the door. It was a fireman checking rooms for signs of life.
After six days I went home. It was the second major fire I had covered for The AP in three-plus years. In May 1977, while based in Cincinnati, I was one of the first reporters at the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky. The death toll was a staggering 165. Two hundred were injured. I had hoped that would be the last tragedy I covered.
Three months later I was back to Las Vegas for another high-rise hotel fire. Eight died and nearly 200 were injured a the Las Vegas Hilton, then the world’s largest hotel with 2,383-rooms,
Las Vegas had an image problem. Their hotels were fire traps, survivors said.
While in Las Vegas, I asked a pit boss at Caesars Palace if the fires would scare away tourists.
No, Stu Meier said firmly. “There’s only one thing stronger than gambling -- and that’s garlic.”
MGM GRAND FIRE FACTS
Primary cause of death of the 85 fatalities:
--75, smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide*
--4, smoke inhalation only
--1, burns only
--3, burns and smoke inhalation
--1, massive skull fracture
--1, myocarditis (reported from a hospital in Houston, Tex.)
*carbon monoxide levels ranged from 25% to 66% saturation
A total of 650 casualties were seen at local hospitals:
--In the first 24 hours, 14 firefighters were hospitalized.
--An estimated 300 firefighters and rescue personnel experienced symptoms of smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide, but did not receive treatment. At least 10 firefighters experienced psychological problems.
A short time later, Nevada adopted the strongest fire safety laws in the country and the visitors came back in record numbers.