Actions

Some tenants return after Petersburg fire; fundraising continues for displaced

Posted at 6:36 PM, Jan 18, 2018
and last updated 2018-01-18 18:36:15-05

PETERSBURG, Va. -- A Virginia State University student returned to her High Street Loft Apartment Thursday. She had lived there just three weeks when a fire broke out early Tuesday morning; a blaze so intense that the sky turned orange and hot spots blazed for over 24 hours, despite falling snow.

"The scariest thing in my life," said 23 year old Lisanne Padmore. "I just felt the fire, like the flames and the heat come to my window."

Padmore would escape with just the clothes on her back.  "I'm just happy to be back home honestly," she said, over 48 hours later.

Daniel Salley is collecting items and money for people displaced and without insurance

She is happy that everybody is okay, and that there were no fatalities.  That section at 420 High Street has three phases of housing: townhomes, condominiums and apartments. People are being allowed back in phases.

Investigators continue to search for answers as to what started the massive fire.

Meanwhile, people like Daniel Salley is collecting items and distributing them to the displaced.

"Wash clothes, snacks, toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, you know everybody needs socks right about now," Salley said.  Salley's town home at the High Street Lofts, that he rents out was destroyed in the fire.

He is also concerned some renting may not have insurance so he started a GoFundMe account, for others.It's currently over $3,460.

The fire

Petersburg officials said that at this time the cause of the fire is unknown and investigations are underway. Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin said crews were dispatched around 5:20 a.m. Tuesday and they arrived to find significant smoke from vacant structure in the 420-block of High Street.

A catwalk bridges that structure with the residential building. The chief said that fire, heat and smoke was pushed through catwalk and ignited fire in the occupied structure.

‘She’s a hero’: Petersburg woman warned residents as fire ignited

"I head the fire alarm and thought it was a false alarm,” said tenant Allen Carpenter, but like many, he quickly realized this was the real thing when he saw the fire’s glow.

Carpenter was outside safe when the empty building walls collapsed onto High Street. Many credited Rhonda Harris for the fact that there were no injuries.

"She's a hero for this community,” said Aretha Ferrell-Benavides, Petersburg City Manager, for risking her life to save others.

"Because I care for these people,” Harris, a leasing agent for the High Street Lofts, as well as a tenant, said she took off running.

"I left phase three out the front door to phase two and I set off the fire alarms in the building and I went screaming up and down the hallways for everyone to get out,” Harris said.

"Well I think she saved lives obviously,” Carpenter said.

Rhonda Harris

Multiple response effort

Fire crews laid more than 4,000 feet of five-inch supply line to bring in the water to fight the fire. Along the way they encountered one frozen hydrant and others with low water pressure --common for this historic area of the city and worked around by isolating one of the city's water tanks.

"We cut off all the pumps at Mount Vernon to allocate all the water in that tank, which is six and half million gallons to this fire and we increased the flow from ARWA, who we purchase our water from to 8 million gallons to supplement that tank,” said Jerry Byerly, Petersburg Dir. Public Utilities.

he chief said that because they were in defensive mode fighting the fire, it was all about volume, not pressure.

He said that they activated mutual aid response plans with Colonial Heights, Hopewell, and Petersburg.

Petersburg fire

At least three of the nearby town homes are destroyed, according to Tim Harris, who is married to the leasing agent. Harris said every resident is required to have insurance to live there.

Antoinette Johnson and her 17-year-old son watched the flames rage while just wearing pajamas and sharing a blanket.

"When you looked outside the sky was orange," Johnson recalled. "I heard a lot of people screaming. People were just running frantically, knocking on doors telling everybody to get out there's a fire."

Cedric Warren drove up to the fire in progress, and against the advice from firefighters, ran inside his apartment to grab his dog.

"They told me I couldn't get in the building but I had to get my dog," Warren said. "I had to go in and save my dog."

CBS6-News-at-4pm-and-Jennifer-Hudson-480x360.jpg

Entertainment

Watch 'The Jennifer Hudson Show' weekdays at 3 p.m. on CBS 6!

📱 Download CBS 6 News App
The app features breaking news alerts, live video, weather radar, traffic incidents, closings and delays and more.