16: The Brinley Inn fire
It started with a girl in Ireland and ended with a fire on the other side of the Atlantic
This is part 16 of a series. To go back to the very beginning, start with part one. To go back to the start of this section, start with part fifteen.
I’d come home from Belgium only to discover that I’d effectively grown up in Geel’s sister city. In all the times I’d heard the same old stories repeated, I’d never put it all together before. Matching people with foster families and putting them in old inns seemed completely different, but both programs emerged from the same legal framework.
While the Jersey Shore’s boarding program lacked Geel’s founding myth, it had a myth to explain its demise: the story of the Brinley Inn fire.
I had expected it would be hard to find an old report about a Bradley Beach inn full of boarders going up in flames, since so many old inns have burnt down over the years. Instead, it took a single try. The Brinley Inn, the inn that burnt down with over half its boarders inside, had housed boarders through the State Department of Community Affairs program for around five years. The fire happened in the summer of 1980.
The front door of the inn had been locked, just like I was told. That wasn’t why it was such a tragedy. The front door was locked since it was late and the innkeeper had gone to bed. No one was locked inside for behavioral control; the door could be opened from the inside.
Twenty three boarders died in the fire because of the construction of the building and the understandable behavior of the inhabitants. The innkeeper went to investigate the fire and then fled the building. The innkeeper yelled for residents to get out of the building. The fire alarm went off on all three floors. The fire alarm wasn't connected to the fire department directly, but the neighbors called the fire department right away. There was no sprinkler system in the building.
Around 150 firefighters responded. A triage area with two doctors was set up. A dozen different first aid squads were on scene. The hospital where I was born is 2 miles away, a seven minute drive. While it was a huge fire with a huge emergency response, it was effectively all over in under ten minutes.
So, people didn’t die because they were locked inside. Other explanations I was given for the death toll were that people were given sedatives, sleeping pills, and pain killers to keep them docile and comfortable. Since people were in bed, they weren’t wearing their hearing aides or glasses. Many of the boarders were old and disabled, so they weren’t agile enough to make it out in time. All perfectly reasonable explanations, none of which turned out to be relevant.
The reason for the tragedy was that residents attempted to escape down the central staircase, rather than the fire escape on the outside of the building. During regular fire drills they’d practiced evacuating the building using the central staircase, so they did exactly what they’d been taught to do. Only the fire started in the basement and the innkeeper had left the basement door open after discovering the fire, so following instructions got them killed.
The fire burst out of the basement and up the central staircase in a flash so powerful that a police officer and the innkeeper were thrown off the porch. Boarders attempting to escape down that staircase didn’t stand a chance.
When I first joined The Caregiver Space, my step-mom managed a sprawling retreat center in Ocean Grove. It was composed of two inns which had been combined, a central staircase and new lobby built into the alley that once ran between them. It has obnoxiously sensitive smoke detectors that made using the oven in her tiny apartment impossible. Even though we called the fire department to tell them it was nothing, we'd still have to evacuate all the guests and wait outside for however long until the fire department turned off the high pitched wail and flashing lights. Thinking of the 24 boarders who died in a single five minute span a few years before I was born, I understand how we ended up with these policies. Would they be enough to prevent a tragedy? I can’t say.
A public health officer suggested that the boarders didn't use the exterior fire escape because they were old and infirm. Boarders ranged in age from 26 to 81, with most in their 70s. Those who died were 39 to 80. Another report explains that those in the rear, near the exterior fire escape, had survived. Those in the front had either attempted to use the central staircase or had barricaded themselves in their rooms and never made it out.
At first arson was suspected. An elderly woman who survived the fire at the Brinley Inn was found wandering the streets and questioned as a possible arsonist. She had left a suicide note in the dining room of the inn shortly before the fire. It was eventually determined that she hadn't been involved. The fire had been caused by faulty wiring.
There were 38 boarders and two staff members who lived at the Brinley Inn. At least ten of the boarders were former mental patients. Twelve had been referred by the New Jersey Division of Mental Retardation. Another six were formerly homeless welfare recipients. The rest had been placed there by the Monmouth County Welfare Board.
As per the agreement made between government agencies and the innkeepers, boarders were provided with room, board, and laundry services. It was reported to have been clean and run by well-intentioned staff. The mayor of Bradley Beach at the time said he'd never received any complaints from residents. It had been visited by a caseworker five times in the three months before the fire. The Brinley Inn had been in compliance with fire safety rules and boarding regulations. The inn had mandatory fire drills.
A law with more stringent standards for residential care facilities, New Jersey's Rooming and Boarding House Act of 1979, had been enacted the year before the fire. The housing director of the Department of Community Affairs said it would take $13 million to make the necessary upgrades to comply with the new law.
The new law allowed for waivers and delays. The ARC demanded immediate enforcement. Acknowledging that this would leave many people with nowhere to go, ARC suggested the state develop incentives to get innkeepers to upgrade their buildings to meet the new standards.
ARC of Monmouth County released a statement condemning the tragedy. Five men who died in the fire had been ARC clients. They had been released from state residential schools and placed in the Brinley Inn by the State Division of Mental Retardation. ARC requested that the deinstitutionalization process be slowed until more suitable housing was developed.
New Jersey’s 450 Plan released long-term psychiatric patients from hospitals, supposedly with housing and treatment tailored to the needs of each patient. This could include daily visits from an aide, skills training, counseling, outings, and job training.
Boarding houses like the Brinley Inn were paid $231 per month through Supplemental Security Insurance for each boarder. Those meeting the higher qualifications of a “shelter care facility” were paid $331. Each boarder was given $30 in SSI for their own spending. Institutional care cost $31,000 a person annually, compared to $2,772 and $3,972 for those placed in boarding homes.
On the other side of Ocean Grove, in Asbury Park, 40 inns had been boarding people through the State Department of Community Affairs program since 1972. Five of those provided medical and grooming care, in addition to the standard room, board, and laundry services. The public health officer complained to a New York Times reporter that the 1,500 former mental hospital patients disrobe and urinate in public. The population of Asbury Park was 17,000, meaning nearly 9% of residents were boarders. This is only a tiny fraction of the percentage of available capacity to host boarders, as the Jersey Shore towns balloon in size during the tourist season.
The same edition of the paper has an article quoting New York City Mayor Koch accusing NY State of dumping thousands of mental patients on the city. Over 40,000 mental patients had been released from hospitals and returned to New York City in the previous four years. He noted that four times as much funding was allocated for in-patients than for out-patients.
Other headlines in the July 29, 1980 New York Times include “Ex-Patient Is Held in 2d Stabbing” and “Lunches for Elderly: Who Should Pay?”