NO LIVES LOST: Several hundred tenants flee from apartment tower fire

Elderly woman is 'critical'; 2 tenants, 7 firefighters treated

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/21/07

BY MICHELLE SAHN AND NANCY SHIELDS
STAFF WRITERS

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ASBURY PARK — A fire on the 14th floor of Munroe Towers Thursday morning critically injured an 80-year-old woman, sent another woman, a toddler and seven firefighters to the hospital and displaced more than 100 tenants.

Authorities believe the late-morning fire started in a bedroom of the 14th-floor apartment of Albert Williams, 92, and his wife, Sunovia, 80.

Thick smoke filled the 14th-floor hallway, and residents tried to make their way outside in the dark. Firefighters had to climb the stairs to put out the blaze and lead some tenants outside.

"As I came down, they were bringing out a woman and putting her in an ambulance," said Carolyn Luengas, who lives on the eighth floor. "Firemen were collapsing at the front door. It was scary."

Residents of floors 11 and 12 on the west side of the 15-story building may be out of their homes for 48 hours, while residents of the top three floors on that side will be displaced for an indefinite period of time, officials said.

All of the 300 to 400 tenants on the western half of the apartment building had to stay out of the building through the night while crews cleaned up the water-soaked stairwells and other areas.

More than 100 firefighters responded to the blaze, which was declared under control at 1:48 p.m.

Police said the preliminary investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office and City Detective Steven Ramseur indicates the fire was accidental and electrical in nature. The exact cause remained under investigation.

Hyperbaric care

Garrett M. Giberson, city Fire Department spokesman, said the blaze was aggravated by "the overabundance of combustibles" in the Williams' apartment, where they had stored a lifetime of possessions. These made it difficult for firefighters to extinguish the blaze and reach the victim, Giberson said.

Firefighters found Sunovia Williams in her living room. She was unconscious but breathing when Fire Capt. Brian Wheary and firefighter Mike O'Gara pulled her out of the apartment, authorities said.

Williams was flown to the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center to be treated in a hyperbaric chamber because of the levels of carbon monoxide in her body, caused by smoke inhalation, officials said.

Two other women and a 22-month-old girl, trapped by smoke in another 14th-floor apartment, were rescued by city firefighters Brett Nielsen, Michael Mautner and Michael Disbrow, with help from Neptune fireman Joseph Mauro, according to Giberson.

One of those women and the toddler were taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune. Seven firefighters — four from the city, two from Neptune and one from Fort Monmouth — were also brought to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion. All nine were treated and released.

The Williamses' unit is believed to be gutted, Giberson said. The flames vented out of their window and reached the apartment above, where Cheryl Bell lives with her fiance, Mitch Gilliard.

Both were at work when the fire began, but Bell's son, Rahleek Walker, was driving by and he spotted the flames "spitting out of the window."

He called his mother at her job at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, and she told her co-workers she had to leave.

She said she was thankful no one in her family was injured, but was most worried about baby pictures of her four children and the trophies they had earned as youngsters.

"(They are) things you can't ever replace, but by the looks of it, it's all gone," Bell said as she stood outside the building where she has lived since 2003. "There's no way anything could have survived that. . . . There's nothing I can do."

A third apartment — which Giberson said he believed was next door to the Williamses' — also sustained heavy smoke and some water and fire damage.

Spotted by passerby

The fire was reported at 11:20 a.m., after a passerby spotted Officer Keith German in a convenience store on the 500 block of Summerfield Avenue and told him there was a fire in a high-rise, police Capt. David Kelso said.

When firefighters arrived, they were able to hook up their hoses up to the standpipe system in the building.

That system allows firefighters to draw water from hydrants to their engines and send that water to exterior connections to the standpipe outside the building. Inside, in the stairwells, firefighters then hooked their hoses to the system to fight the flames.

There are sprinklers in the common hallways, Giberson said. The walls, ceilings and floors of the building are all concrete, and that also helped keep the fire from spreading, he added.

"They did a hell of a job attacking the fire," he said.

Alice Irizarry, 50, a sixth-floor resident, is a prevention case manager for the Visiting Nurse Association of New Jersey.

"The scariest part was watching families running through the building, looking for their children," Irizarry said.

Mike Dickerson, 20, who moved into the building less than a month ago, was home watching television and doing push-ups when the fire broke out.

"All I heard was glass breaking and fire alarms going off and I just jetted out of there," he said.

Early in the afternoon, a State Police helicopter circled the area several times. Giberson said troopers had received reports of people trapped on the roof, but he believes those reports were made by someone who saw firefighters leading residents across the roof, from the burning, smoke-filled west side to the unaffected, east side, so they could make their way downs the stairs and outside.

"What they did today is amazing," City Manager Terence J. Reidy said. "We had firefighters who went through apartments and literally were out on balconies with residents, keeping them safe, until other firefighters came."

"A wonderful lady"

City Fire Marshal Robert Abbott said investigators learned that Sunovia Williams, an early riser, woke early, did some household work, then went back to bed. Her husband went to get a haircut, and when he came back, the building was on fire. Neither Williams smoked, he said.

Gloria Douglas, who lives on the 15th floor, was a child when she first met Sunovia Williams.

"She's a wonderful lady," said Douglas.

Her pastor, the Rev. Johnie Vause of Bethel A.M.E. Church in Asbury Park, said Williams is an active member and "very much loved." She is a former public school teacher and one-time dancer in New York.

Approximately 900 people live in the 15-story, 260-unit building that occupies a city block bordered by Sewall and Monroe avenues, Bond and Emory streets. Residents of the eastern half were back inside the building later Thursday.

Leo Pratte, Red Cross disaster director, said the Salvation Army building a block away on Asbury Avenue had been set up as an American Red Cross shelter and 55 people had signed up for supper at 8 p.m., an overnight stay, and breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Nurses and mental health staff were available.

"We talked to a lot more people, but they have places to stay," Pratte said.

Tenants who need information about returning to their apartments may call the Salvation Army at (732) 775-8698.

The building, built in 1965, has to be inspected yearly and was last inspected in November.

The building owner, Theodore Murnick, declined to comment.