For Chief Joel Gray and the six firefighters who just happened to be on duty during the storm, it all started with a crack of lighting so powerful, and so loud that they knew it had struck nearby.
Veteran firefighter Robbie Rowell said, “We’re probably going to get a call,” and within 60 seconds, at 4:45 p.m. the call came.
It was the 9-11 dispatcher saying that a citizen had reported smoke coming from the roof of a building at the corner of Ball and Carroll Street.
More calls came in even as the firefighters were rushing to the scene in the pounding rain.
Gray says he thought the torrential rain, which continued for a half hour longer, would be holding the smoke down, that they wouldn’t be seeing much of it when they first got to the downtown area.
He was wrong.
By that time a pillar of dark smoke was rising from the one-story Ball Street wing of Snyder Chapman’s CPA office. The lightning had struck the three transformers on a utility pole which directed the electricity into the building. The fire. which was just minutes old, was one they would be fighting with every available resource for the next five hours and would not be able to consider fully extinguished until 10 a.m. Sunday morning.
It was a fire that could have taken out half of downtown Perry, and didn’t.
There would be help from the Warner Robins Fire Department and the Houston County Fire Department, but at the outset, there was Chief Gray and six firefighters, including the one who had to man engine number one.
There were enough of them, but they did have a plan, because under Chief Gray’s leadership they had discussed the possibility of a downtown fire and already knew what the risks were, because of the particular fire risks of that area.
“We had talked about a Carroll Street fire before,” Gray says. “It’s old wood,” In addition, he explains, the buildings starting with Carleton Interiors (which adjoins the Chapman building) and going down to the end of the block, have a common attic – and t if the fire had gotten to the Carleton building, it would have traveled horizontally down the block.
The plan they already had was to place a ladder truck four buildings down from the building from the fires, and to determine the extent of the fire. Thus one of their first jobs was having two of the six firefighters “walk the roof” with thermal cameras to find out where the fire was, and two more going into the front entry on Carroll street dragging a fire hose to try to put it out from the inside, while they began aiming water from ladder truck at the wall between Chapman’s and the adjoining business.
Within minutes they had also gone into Carleton’s and Overton’s Jewelry to check for fire or smoke.
Meantime the Warner Robins Fire Department was already on the road. Gray says that Deputy Chief Jeff Onstead heard it on the scanner and sent a ladder truck without waiting for a request.
Within 20 minutes of the firefighters’ arrival, the fire that had started in the building on Ball Street “flashed “– which essentially means that everything ignited at once. It burned through to the adjoining upper level of the Chapman offices – to the part of the building that opens on Carroll Street. The roof collapsed in the building where it started.
The fight had escalated. The question was whether they could save that side of Carroll Street.
Perry police were on the scene with multiple challenges.
“We had people who wanted to come right up to the fire, “ Capt. Bill Phelps says, “and we had to block off streets all around downtown.”
The fire vehicles had to get to the scene and be able to access the hydrants, but besides that there was real danger.
“Nobody needs to breathing smoke like that if they aren’t wearing an air pack,” Gray says.
He wanted the onlookers, who were gathering into a big crowd on the grounds of the old courthouse, to stay at least a block away. Eventually, police would evacuate the whole area.
Joy Goodman, who had a group of 50 children ready to give a play performance for their parents and friends in the Perry Players building on Main Street, had to evacuate the whole group, and says that by that time the power was off and many of the children were upset and crying.
Fortunately the new Perry Hotel, which didn’t have electricity either, offered its facilities for the children to have he cast party they had planned.
According to Perry Public Service Director George Potter, the community response was “fantastic”, with citizens doing whatever they could to help, and to provide support for the firefighters.
Jerry Whitney, Potter says, came with iced drinks and a chain saw, staying to work with Potter on boarding up buildings. Audrey Evans prepared supper for the firefighters, making sure they had nourishment for the hard night ahead. Potter called Davis Cosey and Jim Sexton about the problem of having sufficient fuel for the generators, and both not only sent trucks with fuel, but also left their homes to come to the scene and help.
It was a long hard fight.
With five hydrants going, they were pumping 6,000 gallons a minute at the fire for the first three and a half hours, and then another 3000 gallons a minute for the next two hours.
Snyder Chapman, a lifelong resident of Perry, says his building is a total loss, but he had nothing but praise for the firefighters and their efforts because it did not spread further.
Chapman said it should be a “wake-up call to the elected officials and leaders of Perry” in regard to staffing and equipment for the fire department, because while he was impressed and grateful for the support of the Warner Robins and Houston County Fire Departments, he thinks that the city’s fire department should be self-sufficient if the need arises.
It is worth noting that the six firefighters who were first on the scene had already put in a full day, responding to three major accidents, and with Gray having to coordinate and lead the efforts and the ladder truck driver having to stay with his vehicle, there were only four firefighters to handle the hose inside the building and the roof-walking.
Mayor Jim Worrall had high praise for all departments of the city for their teamwork, and also for the cooperation from the county and the city of Warner Robins.
“These firefighters,’ he said, ‘should be commended for their continued effort to become the finest fire departments in Middle Georgia.”
In the end, one building was lost. Carleton Interiors had smoke and water damage with its inventory of decorative pieces ruined. Overton Jewelers will reopen in a day or two.
Chapman says he will re-open in Perry, but he’s not sure yet what’s going to happen with the remains of the building at the corner of Ball and Carroll Streets.
