tool name

Friday, Jul. 18, 2008

Evacuations at day center, apartments of elderly, disabled

Normally Emma Hafferkamp wouldn't travel five blocks in her motorized wheelchair, but that's exactly what she did to escape the smoke that was filling her apartment.

Hafferkamp lives in Ballard Griffith Towers, a two-tower apartment complex off West Second Street in Lexington, a few hundred feet from a theater special-effects supply store that went up in flames Thursday.

Firefighters responded to the two-alarm blaze about 9:45 a.m. Thursday at Star Light & Magic at 218 Jefferson Street.

Mayor Jim Newberry ordered the evacuation of several blocks between West Second and West Third.

At the Christian Care Communities, an adult day center at 516 Maryland Avenue, workers scrambled to wheel people out. A shuttle took them to the Salvation Army, 736 West Main Street.

Shena Groves, who works at a roofing company on Maryland Avenue, heard the day center was being evacuated, so she walked down to help people get out.

“I figured I would help them try to get all the elderly out,” she said. “It's wild, really wild.”

Ballard Griffith Towers, home to many elderly and disabled people, was not ordered to evacuate, but staff members did check on each resident, and no problems were reported. About 300 people live in the towers.

Kentucky Utilities cut off electricity to the area as well.

Ballard Griffith Towers resident Elizabeth Bosarge, 61, said the electricity was cut off in her apartment about 15 minutes after she made it downstairs in an elevator. Bosarge made the trek with Hafferkamp, 72, and Teddi Smith-Robillard, 68, to the Salvation Army.

“I'm glad we got out,” Bosarge said. “We defied management.”

Other people who chose to leave the building had to use the stairs, but Hafferkamp said that leaving the building probably wasn't easy.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people that live here use wheelchairs,” she said. Smith-Robillard said she wasn't going to stay in her apartment because she has emphysema and heart problems.

“I could still smell the smoke,” she said.

She walked to the Salvation Army, with the other two women in wheelchairs. They were three of the first people to find refuge there. The Salvation Army also provided a mobile kitchen and drinking water at the scene of the fire.

Crystal Sutton came to the Salvation Army looking for her father-in-law, who lives at Ballard Griffith Towers.

“We don't know if he is OK,” Sutton said. “We can't get near there.”

Sutton left her cell phone number at the shelter, hoping that someone would call if her father-in-law showed up.

Nancy Knudsen, who lives in an apartment on Maryland Avenue delivered drinks and snacks to her neighbors who said it was too hot for them to walk to the Salvation Army.

Knudsen and her neighbors lived across the street from the blaze.