will+pearce

Will Pearce 5/18/11 This is my Papa John. He survived a chemical spill in Kernersville, NC in 1977. This is his story. Survivor story:media type="file" key="Race_To_Action.mp3" width="240" height="20" Survivors Hello, my name is Gabor Hirsch and I survived WW2 in Auschwitz/Birkenau. My days were hard. I almost died many times. If it had not been for my cousin Tibor I would have been killed. I went through many hardships during the war. First off I would like to talk about the time 2300 of us were crammed into 100 houses on the street with the synagogue. Thirteen of us were crammed in a house for three. After all of this the Jews were sent to the ghetto. It was a tobacco drying factory near a railroad. We were taken from there on the 26th of June. Auschwitz/Birkenau was just a horrible place. People were gassed daily. Luckily I was considered able-bodied and was put to work. They decided how able-bodied you were through selections. They would come up every now and then and I failed a few. Luckily whenever I failed ether someone else would say I was still fit or once my cousin actually got me transferred to the work block from the death block. I owe my life to luck and my cousin. After a while they started to increase the killings and eventually they started to just evacuate. They took other blocks first but eventually they got to mine. While they were evacuating I hid under my bed so they wouldn’t find me. I stayed there until the Russians liberated us on the 27th of January 1945. From there I was held in multiple Russian camps until they just let us go. I went back home to Hungary until the uprising when I moved to Switzerland.

Questions

what did you survive? how did you survive? why did you survive? did any thing help you? did any one help you? how did you keep your hope? what did you do to survive? what kind of position were you in? did anything prepare you for this? did you ever expect this to happen? were you suprised that this happened? were there any waring sings that this would happen? would you go back and change it if you could? what was your initail reaction to this incedent? has this affercted your life?

Notes  The 1977 Kernersville chemical spill  The business held thechemicals in something like a massive oil tank close to the lake till theycould be burnt somewhere else.  On the day of the spill theemptying valve was opened by an unknown person or persons.  The holding tank went dryand emptied its unknown contents into the nearby lake.  He was the lieutenant of thesheriffs department at the time  The captain had the day off  He was in charge  Evacuate the townaccess the danger  Horrible odder, “it took mybreath away”-Papa John  Dry spring  Flammable gases in the air  So bad that they didn’tcheck out the spill area till the gases went down  What was the cost of the spill  This lake (main water sourcefor Kernersville) was unusable for 20 years!  No injuries, deaths, orexplosions were known of or reported.  Luckily there was theoriginal lake that Kernersville used (Kernersville Lake) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> It was a natural lake thathad not been used as a water source since the newer lake had been made <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> They used Kernersville lakefor 20 years until the chemical spill cleared up

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Speech <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> One ofthe things I have survived was the Kernersville spill back in 1977. There was some business that collected chemicalwaste produced by other companies such as factories. They held it in something like a oil tanktill it could be burned somewhere else. Wellsomeone or some persons decided it would be funny to let all the chemicals outand opened the valve that was used to load the chemicals onto trucks. I wasthe lieutenant at the sheriff’s department. The captain had the day off so I was the lead. When we first went in the smell was so badthat it took my breath away. We didn’tknow what the chemicals were, but we suspected that they were flammable. Also, it was an abnormally dry spring soeverything was more liable to catch on fire. Because of this we didn’t stay to long, just long enough to see if therewas anyone around, then we went into town and evacuated the citizens so theywouldn’t get hurt. In the end no one wasinjured or killed, and there were no reports or sings off a fire breaking out. The afteraffect of the spill wasn’t too bad. The tankwas next to the manmade lake where the town got its water. This made it impossible to drink out of for20 years because of the contamination of the chemicals. Thankfully we just went back to the originalsource of water. It was the old natural lake. This lake is called Kernersville Lake. That is about all that happened, so I will stop there.