-By Bob Wade, DAT Night Team Leader/Supervisor — ARC of SE Wisconsin — Milwaukee, WI.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

The Red Cross Duty Worker called me just after 9am this morning to let me know that the family we placed into the La Quinta Inn on Friday night–due to burst water pipes and subsequent flooding in their home–was going to be allowed to stay there for two more nights.  I told her that I’d drive up there and give the desk clerk a voucher to pay for it.

I decided to put all of my Red Cross gear on, minus the fire boots, just in case I got called out to a fire while on this assignment.

At around 10:30am I jumped into the DAT van and started writing up the voucher form for the hotel.  Just then, while listening to my police scanner, I heard the Milwaukee Fire Department dispatch a full assignment to an address up on N 50th St.

When firefighters arrived at the scene, they reported, “Smoke showing!  Working fire on the 2nd floor of a 2-1/2 story wood-framed occupied dwelling.”

I threw the van in gear and raced on up to the 2900 block of N 50th St.  The duty worker called me two minutes before I arrived at the scene to tell me that there was a house fire.

I had called my teammates; Tim, Kim and Don along the way, requesting that they respond as well.

One of the battalion commanders at the scene walked up to my window and said, “You again.  The fire is on the 2nd floor and there is one occupant from there.  The homeowner lives in the downstairs unit and she’s just up the street.”

As I got out of the van a paramedic approached me and stated that there was a person from the fire walking around with no shoes on, in his stocking feet in the snow.  I found the man and asked him if he’d like to come over to the van to get warm, as well as a dry pair of socks and shoes.  He followed me.

As he sat down in the back of the van I could tell that he was quite distraught about what had just occurred.  He asked me if I had any water.  I gave him a bottle of water from my cooler then a towel to dry his feet off, along with a pair of socks and shoes.

After my teammates showed up we interviewed the homeowner from the downstairs unit.  She stated that she had already called her insurance company and that she wouldn’t need any assistance from us.

Once the fire and police personnel had completed their work we entered the home and did damage assessments. There was so much debris on the front stairs to the upper unit it was hard to even walk up them.

The young man from the upper unit didn’t have a place to stay so we reserved a room for him at the Best Western Hotel in downtown Milwaukee.  He had stated that he was lighting a tea candle on the coffee table in the front room of his flat when it started everything around it on fire.

In addition to the hotel room, we issued him a client assistance card, for emergency spending money, along with clothing and a comfort kit.

While he did have a car, it had two flat tires.

“A house fire and two flat tires in the same week.  What kind of luck is that?” he asked.  We called a taxi to transport him to the hotel. 

While the firefighters were still dousing out the hotspots from the fire I noticed that the 2nd battalion commander at the scene was Milwaukee’s first female battalion chief in the history of its department. (Chief Weber)

The one fortunate bit of information we learned while at this fire was that the man from the upper unit stated that he had just recently moved in there and that most of his belongings, including his bed, were still in storage at a different location.  While he didn’t have renter’s insurance, he thankfully did not lose everything he owned.

News Story from JSOnline.com:  http://www.jsonline.com/newswatch/37795759.html

Filed under: Disaster Response, Volunteers