Posted on 03/09/2007 11:16:34 AM PST by AuntB
New York - Screams poured from the burning building along with smoke and flames: "Help me! Help me! Please! Please!"
Bystanders looked up to see a woman toss two children out the window one at a time to those below.
The scene unfolded early Thursday during New York's deadliest fire in nearly two decades - a blaze that killed eight children and one adult, part of an extended family led by African immigrants who shared a row house near Yankee Stadium.
The children tossed from the three-story building survived, authorities said. The woman who threw them jumped and survived. The fire was sparked by an overheated space heater near a mattress in a basement bedroom, then raced up a stairway pushed by air from broken back windows, said Fire Chief Salvatore Cassano.
Most of the 22 residents - 17 of them children - were stranded on the upper floors as the blaze raged for two hours.Neighbor Edward Soto ran toward the fire, then stared in disbelief as an infant was tossed from the building.
"All I see is just a big cloud of white dust, and out of nowhere comes the first baby," said Soto, who caught the child while with another neighbor.
Moments later, he caught a second child. Firefighters worked for two hours in freezing predawn temperatures to bring the flames under control. The home had two smoke alarms, but neither had batteries. Police said there was no evidence of a crime.
The dead were found throughout the house, mostly on the upper floors, with babies still in their cribs. The victims included five children from one family, along with a wife and three other children from a second family.
Word of the fire spread grief across two continents, from the Bronx to villages in Mali, a West African country about twice the size of Texas and one of the poorest nations in the world.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," said Mamadou Soumare, a livery cabdriver whose wife, son and 7-month-old twins died in the blaze. "I love her. I love my wife."
Not to mention the lives of innocent children who would have been saved, but the cost of this will be in the millions for medical care, fire loss just for not enforcing our laws and cities like New York having been made 'sanctuary cities'.
Rino Rudy approves of illegal immigrant sanctuaries.
And of course they're all going to spin this as it's somehow whitey's fault.
Dang! I'm sorry about posting the same story. I did search the title, even searched under keywords. It would be so helpful if people who post articles would put in some keywords.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1797278/posts
Shameless ping and a bump!
What? It's a tragic fire. Nobody is questioning the NYFD or blaming anyone.
These people should be rounded up and deported.
Search functions:
1) click on "forums" to show all forums
2) select the most unique word in the title of the article you want to post.
3) enter that word alone in the 'search' box, and select 'By title (date), and hit 'Search'
3a) direct URL >> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;s=(your unique word)
4) this will find a duplicate 99% of the time.
If they were stopped from coming in we could avoid all that. And save lives.
We could use some respect for some of our old adages...."A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", comes to mind.
And of course they're all going to spin this as it's somehow whitey's fault.
_________________
Excellent work. Dumbest post today.
Exactly.
I'll reserve judgment on that till I hear what Sharpton, Jackson and the NYT say. They rarely miss an opportunity to capitalize on this kind of thing.
Though the NYFD (appropriately IMO) cataloged for the NYT this morning all the stupid mistakes that the adults inside made. Staying inside trying to throw water on the fire, calling a husband instead of 911 -- the first 911 call came from a house across the street, etc. Oh, and there were 2 smoke detectors, but neither had a battery, and of course overloaded electrical circuits. Stupidity is deadly.
Seeing as I just picked a nit with another poster, I'll humbly take my lick and clarify ....
Dumbest post by a freeper today.
Actually, a man's whose wife and several children died in the fire is complaining publicly that the NYFD didn't get there and start putting water on fast enough. Records show they were there within 4 minutes of the first 911 call, and they got water going almost immediately.
I hadn't read that -- but I wouldn't put too much stock in it. Folks in grief say just about anything.
I don't doubt that NYFD was there in four minutes.
I don't know their immigration status. They owned the home.
What I've heard is that they were all related, the house is a one family dwelling, but that a building permit had been filed with the city to convert the residence into a legal three family.
At least one of the male residents was out working at the time, driving a cab. Another, was out of the country visiting other family in their native country. There was a home business registered at that address.
It was owner occupied, not the case of an absentee landlord. If and when the city approves the conversion to a three family dwelling (I imagine a basement apt and one on each floor) it would require the installation of sprinklers in the halls and a fire escape.
One of the female residents called her husband (the cab driver) first, instead of 911. She also reportedly left a room door open as she tried to evacuate, which may have contributed to the rapid spread of the fire. She along with 3 of her children (including infant twins) perished.
My home burglar alarm once went off in the middle of the night when a strong windstorm blew open an unlocked front door. I was the only one who jumped up to check downstairs, cell phone in my hand. Kids (3 teenagers) never heard it, hubby eventually stumbled down, half groggy.
All of a sudden it was clear to me how people perish in house fires. And I didn't awaken to as smoke filled room unable to see anything.
Very sad situation.
That always gets my dander up. Either someone removed the batteries for use in another device, or the batteries were getting low, started that slow annoying warning beep, and somebody pulled the batteries and never replaced them.
Might not have been true in this case, but too many people have died over the lack of a few dollars worth of 9V batteries.
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