âA blackout at sea was never like this,â said John Sizemore, a sailor on leave, who celebrated the drill in a dimmed tavern on Washington Avenue.
In the eerie darkness, sentries on the Spivey Building in East St. Louis saw the glow of locomotive fireboxes on the Eads Bridge. University City Mayor Matt Fogerty, on the roof of City Hall, spotted a lit cigarette three blocks away. Pilots reported seeing little but the interior lights of the sprawling ammunition factory on Goodfellow Boulevard, which had been exempted from the drill.
There were isolated accidents and acts of malice. A woman on Lafayette Avenue suffered a broken arm in her darkened apartment. A stockboy cut his hand closing a shop door on South Broadway. Two men were robbed downtown.