Bob Wade’s DAT Diaries
THE PORTICOS FIRE

Compiled and written by Bob Wade, DAT Night Team Leader and Supervisor,
American Red Cross of Southeastern Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wis.

This past Christmas Eve, American Red Cross of Southeastern Wisconsin disaster action team volunteers were sent to respond to an apartment sometime after 6:00 p.m., for what was called in to the duty worker as a 10-unit apartment fire. What I first thought would be a routine call turned into the biggest fire call of my entire Red Cross career.

1:50 a.m. Christmas Morning
Just arrived back home now from the largest fire I’ve ever been called out to! We were there for about 5.5 hours.

It was a 114-unit apartment fire at The Porticos and sadly there was one fatality.

While there’s never a good night to have a fire, tonight, of all nights, Christmas Eve, could probably be considered one of the worst.

The fire started in a single unit on the 2nd floor–Apt #207–and quickly spread to the 3rd floor above it. In all, 27 of the building’s occupants were not allowed back into their apartments tonight.

It wasn’t until about a week after The Porticos fire, that I found the time to sit down and write everything out from that unforgettable night.

On the Scene at The Porticos Fire

It certainly wasn’t an easy call…but we handled it.

At one point during that night, I felt as if I was standing on the promenade deck, at the foot of the grand staircase, of the RMS Titanic and everyone but my teammates and I were convinced that this ship was sinking. It was our job, as Red Cross disaster action team members, to convince the residents of The Porticos that this ship was NOT going to go down.

The Fox Point Police Chief had such a look in his eyes, as if his own children were living there at The Porticos, when I first met with him at the make-shift command center that night. The Fire Chief’s words burned into my side like a dagger as he said, “One fatality” during his first briefing.

During my first briefing at the command center, the Chief and others around him were more than cooperative with me and even handed me their list of names of the tenants from the A building of The Porticos, where the fire was. I took it, glanced at it, and handed it back to one firefighter, and said, “You know, we’re going to do our own interviews once we get inside there, so you can hang on to this.”

Once the rest of our team had arrived at the scene, we marched silently up to the command center for one more briefing before heading back to the B building where all the evacuees had been situated. “We have three stories, with 38 apartments on each floor,” the Fire Chief told me. I followed protocol and called my Supervisor, Nina, to inform her of the fatality and tell her that it was a three-alarm fire. She asked me if I wanted any help. I told her we were good at that point; Fred, Kayti, Jen, Jan, Tim and I were all there and anxious to get to work.

Tim wasn’t even on call that week, but he was listening to his police scanner, and decided to call me and offer his assistance if we needed it, while I was en route to Fox Point. I told him I’d call him back and let him know once I got to the scene and sized it up. I called him back shortly after arriving at the scene…”Come on up!”

Helping

My teammates and I walk into the lobby of building B. The room was full of people. A police officer walking down the stairs in front of us came up to me and said, “You see the people down here? (pause) There’s double that amount of people upstairs.”

“Thanks!” I told him.

I briefed my teammates during the walk from the A building back to the B building, so they knew what to expect.

“Get names, apartment and phone numbers, “Yes” or “No” on the renters’ insurance and alternate places to stay information only. Make that your priority. We’ll worry about the rest of the information later,” I told them.

We walked through the front doors to B Building, and the swarm began; I have people all around me, all trying to give me their information first:

“When can we leave?”
“When can we go back in?”
“Is my apartment on fire?”
“What type of damage was done to my apartment?”
“Was anyone hurt or killed?”

I can only imagine that my teammates have the same situation going on around them as well.

I told those within earshot of me my name, that I’m from the American Red Cross, and that some of the questions I’m going to ask might be personal, so they might want to talk to me one-on-one. Some of them back off briefly.

“Renter’s insurance?”
“Yes!”

I think everyone who lived there had renter’s insurance, except for maybe one individual.

I don’t know how long it took us to get the interviews completed, because I pulled myself off that task once I heard that there were family members out on the perimeter of the fire scene and some of the clients wanted to leave.

Golf Cart Taxi

I learned that there were golf carts all over the grounds and I got my hands on one and started driving people, three at a time, out of there.

There was one road in to the scene and it was clogged with emergency vehicles. No one was able to drive out in their cars; it was completely blocked. Some of the private ambulance techies even started rolling some of the clients out on their gurneys. We had a large number of elderly people and it was way too far and too cold to walk out.

On my first trip out, I stopped by the van and grabbed three blankets, then wrapped them around the three women I had in the golf cart.

As I got back into the golf cart to get them out of there, the woman in the front seat reached over and handed me something:

“Here…I found this lucky penny on the ground while you were getting the blankets,” she said. “I think you’re going to need this tonight.”

I said, “Wow! Thank You!” That lifted my spirits and gave me even more motivation (and adrenalin) to get everyone to safety!

We drove the 1/4-mile or so up the road in the golf cart and waited for the three ladies’ family members to arrive before I left to get more people. Two young men at the perimeter said they lived in the A Building and asked if I could give them a ride back…I said, “Hop on!”

I arrived back at the B Building and wrapped blankets around three more woman and repeated this trip a few more times.

I had my Motorola radio around my neck so I was able to keep in constant contact with my teammates.

The firefighters were still pouring water on the fire.

I went back into the B Building and realized that we had finally evacuated all those who had family members waiting for them at the perimeter.

Gathering Fire Victim’s Personal Belongings

If you’re patient enough, every fire call usually moves smoothly from one phase to the next.

The next phase was communicating the need for medications from everyone’s apartment units.
The North Shore Fire Department Chaplain took charge of that. After about an hour, he came up to me and said, “I have to give Mass in 30 minutes. Can you take over for me?” I could tell he was sweating about the clock. He had to get to a church somewhere, clean himself up from this fire scene and give a Christmas Eve Mass to a congregation.

“Yes…We’re on it!” I told him.

I couldn’t walk two steps without getting grabbed by someone wanting more information as to what was going on in their apartment.

I was getting updates, but because I could not confirm everything, I wasn’t sharing all of this incoming information with the clients. It is worse to give updates at calls like these that are not absolute fact and can end up being false, as opposed to keeping people waiting for updates, especially when there has been a fatality.

From what I could tell at that point, no one even knew about the fatality and my teammates and I certainly did not know if family or loved ones of the deceased woman were in that room with us.

When I was finally asked about injuries or worse, I told the clients I didn’t have all of the facts yet, so I didn’t feel that it would be appropriate for me to comment about it at that point.

A firefighter finally came into the lobby of the B Building and gave everyone an update. He gave everyone the latest on the situation, which calmed some people, but riled up others even more.

After that, we moved it to the next phase, along with the continued recovery of needed medications.

A North Shore Fire Fighter gave us permission to go in and gather personal belongings.

We all started writing down lists from the clients of what they needed the most out of their apartments, other than medications.

“I need my glasses…they are on my table in my bedroom.”
“I need my cell phone charger…It’s on the floor to the right of my couch in the living room.”
“Could you get my nice digital camera off of my bed while you’re in there?”
“I work out of my apartment…all of my most important papers are on top of my desk.”

“Sure…No problem” we replied, as we wrote it all down.

Kayti and I took the van up to the A Building, then started our search on the first floor and worked our way up.

Up on the 3rd floor, in the unit just adjacent to where the fire had started below, the south wall to the apartment was gone. I shone the flashlight in that direction and you could see all of the way down to the 2nd floor; a complete structure collapse there. There was nothing left of apartment # 307. Only the kitchen and front entrance portion of that unit’s floor had remained intact.

We grabbed some medications and the man’s digital camera off his bed. We looked up and saw the stars in the night sky from the holes in the roof.

Kayti kept finding me more bags and I kept filling them up with people’s belongings.

Kayti also kept finding pictures on the floor, on tables, or wherever, which she gently placed into the bags as well.

“Memories!” she said.

After grabbing the digital camera, I started to notice the smell of fresh smoke in that apartment.

“Does this smell like old stagnant smoke or new smoke to you Kayti?” She replies, “It smells new.”

I’m began thinking that this fire is still burning. AND IT IS. Right above our heads!

The firefighters are long gone at this point, but it doesn’t take but two minutes to hear the sounds of fire engines screaming back to the scene a second time, to put the fire out once more.

I grab the van and we put all of the bags with everyone’s valuables into it and drive back to the B Building and distribute them.

The crowd had dwindled down to less than 20 people within the lobby of the B Building at this point and I asked if anyone else needs something out of their apartment.

Kayti and I drove the van back up to the A Building and did one more search with the list we had compiled.

The firefighters had two lines laid out and were pulling the ceilings down in front of Apt 305, right where we wanted to go to try to find the Rolex watch belonging to the man with the digital camera. We can’t go in–that’s where the fire is.

After that last search, we headed back to the B Building and stayed there until the last client was gone.

One More Person to Help

But wait!

There was a man up on the second floor, in the party room. Bruce!

I walked up the stairs and into the party room. Bruce was sprawled out on a sofa in front of the TV and I say, “Hey Bruce…Where are you going to sleep tonight?” He says, “I figure I’ll sleep right here.” He had no place to go.

“You don’t want to do that…Let me get you a hotel room for the night.”

He hesitates. “What about the cost?”…”Don’t worry about that…the Red Cross will pay for it,” I tell him.

“OK…Thanks,” and he smiles.

Captains of the Ship

We see Bruce off and I head back to the B Building where only my teammates remain. Halfway down the stairway, I say, “You see everyone, they thought they were on a sinking ship in here, but they weren’t. All is well now.”

“Great job everyone!”

We sort of look around at each other and realize that we are done.

We were Captains of the ship. We successfully carried out our mission.

I looked at the clock on my cell phone…”Wow! We’ve been here for over five hours…the time went by like nothing!”

“Who’s hungry?” I ask. “I’m buying and we’re going to George Webb’s for breakfast.”

Kayti and Jen came along and we stuffed our stomachs with plenty of food, not really talking much about the fire we had just come from.

There Were More Christmas Fires to Come

A couple of hours later, I’m lying in bed (I can’t fall asleep because I’m so full) and across my police scanner I hear, “FILL OUT THE ASSIGNMENT” and off we go to one more fire at around 4:35 a.m. on Christmas morning.

We ended up responding to three fire calls on Christmas Eve and two more on Christmas Day. The fire calls kept on coming, all of the way up until New Year’s Eve, when they abruptly came to a halt.

One Last Comment

I still have, and will always keep that lucky penny which was given to me by that woman in the golf cart that night at The Porticos!

…Bob