[StBernard] Chalmette apartment fire displaces 19 families; arson suspected

[Westley Annis]

Chalmette apartment fire displaces 19 families; arson suspected
By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
November 16, 2009, 5:59PM

A fire ripped through a mostly abandoned, decrepit collection of apartments
in Chalmette early Monday, badly damaging the one occupied apartment complex
in the area and leaving 19 families temporarily homeless.

The fire in the Village Square area was the second major blaze to damage the
Palm Garden Apartments in less than three months, heightening concerns about
lingering blighted buildings in St. Bernard Parish's largest tract of
hurricane-damaged properties. "These vacant buildings have to come down
before they kill one of our firefighters," Fire Chief Thomas Stone said.


No one was injured in the blaze. Officials with the Southeast Louisiana
chapter of the Red Cross were on the scene Monday, offering food, clothing
and hotel vouchers to those in need.
Authorities believe the fire is arson.

The incident closely mirrored an Aug. 31 blaze in the same area: both
happened on a Monday morning, and both were set about 1 a.m. Both fires
started in abandoned buildings near the Palm Garden apartments and soon
spread to the inhabited units.

St. Bernard Parish government has aggressively demolished homes across much
of the parish, but many of the apartments in Village Square remain
untouched. Since Hurricane Katrina, parish government has tried to buy out
and redevelop the area. As officials have wrestled with various plans to
finance the buyout, the mildewed, decaying buildings in the area have
remained as monuments to Katrina's destruction.  

Monday's fire started at an abandoned building on Palm Avenue and quickly
spread to the adjacent Palm Garden apartments, the only occupied complex in
the area.

Firefighters had to cut their way into the attic of the apartment building
with chainsaws to prevent the flames from spreading to the other three
inhabited apartment buildings nearby. The fire was reported at 1:15 a.m.,
and under control by 4:30 a.m.

Steve Whitehead, a vice president with Renola Homes, which owns the Palm
Garden apartments, said all of the families will be relocated to vacant
units in the 91-unit complex.

The entire building - about 20 units - was damaged, and will have to be
demolished, Whitehead said.

"The first one was hard. This one: I don't have any words I can describe
what we've gone through," he said. "We wonder, 'Why don't they knock them
down?' ... They're knocking buildings down all over the area. Why not
safeguard the one structure that people live in?"

The parish plans to turn most of the area into green space. Parish President
Craig Taffaro did not reply to a request seeking comment, but he has
previously said that most of the buildings could come down by the beginning
of next year, as soon as FEMA reimbursement for demolition costs are worked
out.

Stone said the fire showed how thin the department is stretched. The fire
came a day after parish voters struck down a proposed $20-per-household fee
for fire protection and sanitation, $10 of which would have gone toward
hiring more firefighters.

"We couldn't have handled another fire this morning," he said. "We didn't
have enough apparatus to cover the parish. We'd have had to break people
loose from this one."