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If you have read about the Iroquois disaster you might
have read references to deviations from plans
approved by the building department. There
seem to have been two such offences. One was
the
increased rake in the third floor balcony.
The other deviation was that seats were installed in front of the box
seats on the ground floor where there should have
been aisles. This meant that people sitting in
the seats (encircled in red in accompanying photos)
had to walk down the row they were sitting in toward
a center aisle, turn east and travel up to the back
of the auditorium to reach a north-south aisle
leading out into the lobby or to a fire escape exit out onto
Couch Place.
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Fortunately, the ground floor of the auditorium was
cleared by the time the fire ball shot out from
under the curtain gap so the seat deviation was not
as significant a problem as was the step rake on the
third floor balcony. It caused tripping and
falls that in the darkened theater resulted in
trampling.
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