Updated 5 p.m. May 9 by Steve Gravelle
Cedar Rapids-based Iowa Task Force-One, a state Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) unit, has been deployed to Oelwein to assist with stabilization of two severely damaged buildings.
The USAR team was called to the scene this afternoon by the Iowa Fire Marshal’s Office and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents investigating the scene, Cedar Rapids Fire Department Greg Buelow said. Squad leader and Cedar Rapids Battalion Chief Brian Giachino and 14 members of the team are expected to work through the night to shore up the buildings so agents can enter them to continue their investigation. The structures were compromised by the fire and must be secured before investigators can enter to collect evidence.
Task Force-One responded with heavy rescue equipment to cut through steel and concrete. The team also brought spreading, drilling, and shoring equipment to the scene.
Story by Chris Earl/Photos by Julie Koehn
OELWEIN – Heidi Cowart knew she had to get out of her apartment and get to the ground. Right away.
“Everybody in the apartments, we saw the smoke, I said ‘grab the birds and get out!’,” said Cowart, who had lived in an apartment building at 17 West Charles Street in downtown Oelwein for only a few months before a major fire destroyed the building Friday night.
Cowart said she was able to get out of the burning building through the back stairs. She said other people in the building’s eight apartments above the ground floor used either the back or the front.
Oelwein fire investigators said Saturday all of the people in the burning building were able to get out.
Donna Neumann took over ownership of West Charles Antiques in March, on the first floor of the building that burned late Friday.
“I think I’m still in shock,” said Neumann. “This was a hope and a dream to be part of the community and to give back to it.”
Yet as people spent Saturday in downtown Oelwein, breathing in the smoke-filled air and looking at the damage, it was also easy to think back to other major fires over the past decades.
“We’ve had a lot of major downtown fires,” said Fire Chief Wallace Rundle, as he brought up two major church fires, the Two Brothers Restaurant fire and the City Laundry Dry Cleaners fire of the early 1990s. “I don’t feel blessed with that.”
Rundle said on Saturday morning that fire investigators are still working to pinpoint a cause but that they have a good idea of where, inside the building, the fire started.
“This was a big one,” said Carol Paul, a longtime Oelwein resident and the wife of a city firefighter. She said crews worked all throughout the night. “Biggest one I remember being involved in.”
Cowart said she does have shelter and praised the landlord of the building for making sure the tenants are taken care of in these traumatic times.
As Neumann watched the smoke fill the area around the store she worked so hard to open, she was just relieved that everyone in the building was able to get out.
“Dreams can be rebuilt. Possessions can be replaced. I’m just glad everybody got out.”
Sarah Davis of Oelwein puts her arm around her brother Mike Bushaw, also of Oelwein as they look at the back of the West Charles Mall, Kirby’s (a vacuum shop) and seven apartments after the buildings were ruined by a fire on E Charles Street in Oelwein on Saturday, May 8, 2010. The fire started around 10:30 Friday night and firefighters were still on the scene at 7 a.m. The two’s grandmother, sister and some friends lived in the upstairs apartments. Bushaw said his grandmother, Dorothy Quario, has always lived in this building, it’s her home. The two were thankful their grandmother was woken up notified about the fire by her neighbors. (Julie Koehn/The Gazette)
Sara Nelson of Strawberry Point looks watches the scene on E Charles Street in Oelwein after a fire burned through the West Charles Mall, Kirby’s vacuum shop and seven apartments on Saturday, May 8, 2010. The fire started around 10:30 Friday night. Nelson said she was in town visiting her mother and she’s been to the antique mall before. (Julie Koehn/The Gazette)
Firefighters continue to put out a fire at the West Charles Mall, an antique mall, and the building next to it on E Charles Street in Oelwein in the early morning hours on Saturday, May 8, 2010. The upstairs of the building also houses seven apartments. (Julie Koehn/The Gazette)
