As ice, cold bore down, homes went up in flames
Fire crews dealt with slick roads, water problems
When the ice storm knocked out power to San Juana and Anthony Leahman’s Northwest Side home last week, they lit their gas fireplace to stay warm, something they usually never do.
That Monday night, San Juana, 65, slept on a couch under blankets and beside the fireplace with her rescue dogs, including five Chihuahuas, helping to keep her warm.
The next day, her daughter showed up and sounded the alarm.
“She said, ‘Mom, have you seen all the smoke coming out of your house?’” San Juana said. “When I went outside, the smoke in a matter of minutes turned from white to green and black. It was almost surreal.”
Emanating from the chimney, the fire would badly damage but not destroy the Leahmans’ home of 21 years. San Juana recalled the sharp sense of loss she felt standing outside in the winter storm and watching her house burn.
“I felt like my house was in pain,” she said through tears. “I love my house. I would even say that. I would say, ‘OK, house, this is for you,’ when we would paint the house. My home, whenever we would get any extra money — my house, my house.”
Firefighters responded to 130 structure fires between Sunday and Friday, more than six times the usual number of calls. Of those, 37 were significant “working” fires, with flames and smoke visible when firefighters arrived — also a high number. Typically, the Fire Department battles one or two blazes a day.
In many cases, the ice that blanketed Texas provoked and exacerbated the flames.
As freezing temperatures crippled the state’s power grid and robbed residents of water and heat, people used chimneys, space heaters and other means to stay warm. When flames were sparked, icy roads and low water pressure hampered the response of firefighters.
Under orders to save the frozen power grid from catastrophic failure, CPS Energy cut electricity to critical San Antonio Water System pump stations early in the crisis, causing cas
cading water woes.
“We had problems with getting water,” Fire Chief Charles Hood said, “and that could have been Fire Department pump issues or SAWS water issues or hydrants, trying to stretch lines.”
One conflagration was fatal. Around 8 p.m. on Feb. 15, a Northwest Side apartment complex at the top of a hill in the 4800 block of Gus Eckert Road caught fire.
Firefighters struggled to move their engines uphill in the ice. Three residents jumped from a balcony to escape; two were injured. A 63-year-old man was found dead in an apartment where the blaze started, a Fire Department spokesman said.
The cause of the fatal fire is under investigation.
On Thursday, a massive fire destroyed a North Side apartment complex in the 4000 block of TPC Parkway, displacing 130 residents. Firefighters were slowed by hydrants on-site that did not produce water, forcing them to shuttle water from hydrants nearly a quarter of a mile away.
As San Juana’s home in the 6400 block of Village Park burned, she and her daughter and granddaughter dashed in and out before firefighters arrived, trying to rescue all the pets.
In danger were the Chihuahuas — Baby, Petey, Molly, Peanut and Roxy, who is fat. Also in peril was Blue, a half-pit bull, half-lab, so named because he howls at night. There was Sandy, a Shih Tzu. And then there was Bandit.
“I don’t know what he is,” San Juana said. “He’s a Heinz 57 because I don’t know what he is. We call him Bandit because his eyes are like when you put on a mask, like a robber.”
Peanut, hiding under a couch and scared, bit San Juana’s granddaughter when she tried to extract him. But in the end, all eight of San Juana’s rescue dogs were rescued once again.
Once firefighters arrived, they seemed to struggle to get water, San Juana said.
“They hooked up the hose, and the hose was leaking out all the water,” she said. “I said, ‘How can you put out my house when you can’t keep the water in there?’”
Firefighters knocked out the ceiling to extinguish the flames. Afterward, San Juana went back inside to survey the damage, stepping on “gummy and black” insulation that had fallen from the ceiling.
Suddenly, she remembered the birds — her two parakeets.
“I said, ‘Oh my god, my babies, they burned to death! I’m a monster, I didn’t think about my birds!’” she said. “When I said, ‘My babies,’ they popped out. My husband built them a house, a special house for nesting, and it has a real tiny hole.”
The fish, however — a 12-yearold sucker fish and a 14-year-old fighting fish — didn’t make it.
Now, San Juana, who works at Target, and her husband, a chef, are holed up at a hotel with most of her dogs. Friends and family are caring for the rest. But their insurance company has been “great,” she said, and they expect to move back into the house in about eight months.
Some rooms, including the master bath, were ruined. Others escaped unsinged, including a room San Juana calls the “grandma room,” replete with a rocking chair, sewing machine and Peter Rabbit decorations, where she once read to her eight grandchildren, all now grown.
San Juana and her “babies” — her animals — are still in shock, she said.
“Sometimes it’s a little scary because I suffer from anxiety, bad,” she said. “And this, all this, I’m still trying to process it. My husband, he keeps tossing and turning and tossing and turning, and he keeps me awake.”
Things just seem so “iffy” now, her husband told her.
“And I said, ‘Well, what’s important is everyone’s OK,’” San Juana said. “And now, we’ll just start from the beginning.”