Calumet City grapples with fatal fire’s impact
Officials declare state of emergency, offer financial help to displaced residents of condo complex
Donald McIntosh had four baseball caps and a pair of sunglasses perched on his head as he carried two bags of his belongings Tuesday out of The Park of River Oaks condominiums in Calumet City.
“I just grabbed the basics,” he said.
McIntosh is among dozens of residents displaced following a fire Monday evening in a building in the condo complex that left an 85-yearold woman dead and injured seven other people, including three firefighters.
McIntosh said he and his wife will stay with their children, but other residents said they were unsure of where they would end up or for how long.
Residents on Tuesday were allowed to grab a few items from their condos, and people were carrying suitcases, shopping bags and plastic garbage bags filled with their belongings out to the parking lot.
The woman who died lived on the seventh floor of the building at 200 Park Ave., where the fire broke out. It is connected to two other buildings that face River Oaks Golf Course. She was identified by the Cook County medical examiner’s office as Wilhelmina K. Williamson.
She died of thermal and inhalation injuries and her death was ruled an accident, the medical examiner’s office said Wednesday.
Separately, the city said Wednesday a state of emergency had been declared, enabling Calumet City to advance money to nearly 200 displaced residents for necessities such as temporary housing and food. The city said it had also arranged for some condo residents to stay at hotels.
Firefighters responded at 7 p.m. Monday to the 200 Park address and encountered “heavy fire” coming from a second-floor unit at the rear of the building, with the fire extending to the seventh floor, according to Calumet City fire Chief Glen Bachert.
The rear, or approximately east side, of that building and the adjoining buildings face a large fenced-in swimming pool.
Gloreatha Jones said she was on her balcony and a woman who was
near the pool was shouting up to other residents, warning them of the fire.
“I ran back inside and pulled the fire alarm,” Jones said Tuesday.
She lives on the fifth floor toward the rear of the building and said her condo sustained mainly water damage, and she was unsure of where she will stay in the meantime.
“I just don’t know,” Jones said.
She said the Red Cross had set up cots in the nearby Sandridge Nature Center a few blocks north of the condos, but that “I don’t want to sleep on a cot.”
Another fifth-floor resident, Carolyn Phillips, said nothing was salvageable from her condo.
“Everything’s gone,” she said. “Everything is gone except for the clothes on my back.”
Phillips said she has lived at The Park since August 2007 and was also unsure of where she would end up.
“I’m waiting to hear from my insurance company,” she said.
Phillips said she had left the building before the fire broke out and got a call on her cellphone from a friend who lives in the building telling her to “come back right now, there’s a fire in the building.”
McIntosh said that he and his wife, who live on the third floor toward the front, or west side, of the 200 building had been at the pool Monday afternoon then left to get dinner.
“We were coming back and saw smoke and thought maybe a truck was on fire,” he said.
McIntosh said he has lived at The Park for 30 years and was grateful there was not a greater loss of life.
“We do have to give accolades to the fire departments that responded,” he said. “They saved a lot of lives.”
The four residents along with the firefighters were taken to hospitals, but their injuries were not life threatening, according to the fire chief.
Lynette Stokes, who lives on the fourth floor, said she thought she smelled smoke at some point around 6 p.m.
“A friend who lives on the second floor called me to say there was a fire and to get out,” she said Tuesday. “I just grabbed my purse and phone and left as quickly as I could.”
Stokes said she was able to go back into her unit Tuesday, but that not many of her belongings were salvageable.
“If it didn’t stink like smoke it was wet,” she said.
She said that, for now, she is staying at a nearby motel but is unsure of her plans.
“I don’t really have family in the area but seeing if friends will let me stay with them,” she said.
Calumet City’s chief said the department was assisted by 24 other surrounding agencies for both fire and emergency medical services assistance.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, although Jones and Stokes said they had heard it might have started with someone cooking on the balcony of their unit.
The fire caused extensive damage to several floors and there is also smoke damage in other parts of the building, according to a spokesman for the city.
A city employee at the building Tuesday said that when the fire reached the roof, the roof caved in and broke water lines for the sprinkler system.
“The water damage is unbelievable,” he said, asking that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak with the media. He works for city’s department of inspectional services.