Shortly after midnight on Jan. 21, Charles Desobry was woken up by the sound of firetrucks and shouting outside his open window. Living near a college campus, he was used to late night party crowds, and living near the Highland Road fire station, the sound of firetrucks wasn’t unusual either. He went back to bed.
Around 1 a.m., Desobry was awoken again, this time by frantic banging on the doors of apartments near his. He got out of bed this time, suddenly afraid that it might be his apartment on fire. His suspicions turned to anxiety when he opened the door to find an enormous cloud of red smoke.
Desbory, a second-year graduate student studying art at LSU, lives at the Bradshaw apartments. One of their buildings was destroyed by a fire in the early hours of Saturday Jan. 21. Fortunately for Desbory, it wasn’t his.
No injuries resulted from the fire. Twelve Bradshaw residents were displaced and four LSU students were impacted. Campus Life is following up with them to make long-term plans, LSU spokesperson Ernie Ballard said.
Mollie Tinnin is the disaster program manager for the Louisiana Capital Area chapter of the American Red Cross. She was first on the scene for the organization.
The first thing she noticed when she arrived at the scene shortly after 2 am., beside the large number of fire personnel on the scene, were the shivering tenants standing outside the burning building. The temperature in Baton Rouge was around freezing that night.
“It was a challenging night just because of the unique temperatures of that night,” Tinnin said. “So the first thing I noticed was the need to find a warm place to move everybody.”
By 2:45 a.m., Tinnin had ushered the residents to a nearby hotel lobby, where the real work began. Her main job that evening was intake, which requires getting residents’ information, but also listening to their stories.
“I want to let them debrief about what they experienced and have that conversation and make that connection with them to where it’s not just I’m giving you some sort of assistance, but I’m also allowing you to sit here and process what you’ve been through,” Tinnin said.
Tinnin said that the residents she assisted were in a state of shock after being driven from their homes by a fire only to be greeted by freezing temperatures. By the time they were warm again, residents had to contend with the fact of temporary homelessness.
“The emotional atmosphere was one of just shock, you know, fear of the unknown, fear of what you’re going to go back to or not go back to,” she said.
In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the Red Cross helped the residents with temporary aid, like shelter and transportation. Long-term assistance will be made available to those who need it, Tinnin said.
Nobody was injured during the course of the fire, and residents who lost their homes were able to move into other units in the same property.
Desobry eventually returned to the warmth of his apartment, but not before offering comfort to residents who lost their homes.
He talked to one resident who returned from his night shift only to find his apartment burning. Desobry spoke to another, a woman, visibly distraught, who was frantically calling people, leaving voicemails, and calling again, trying to find out if her friends and neighbors were okay.
“That was probably one of the most difficult parts of the night,” Desobry said. “It was a situation where I was outside looking in at this fire.”
The next morning, Desobry went into the charred apartments.
“Looking back [that] was probably not a smart thing to do, considering the fact that I think one apartment on the first floor had its ceiling collapsed in on itself,” he said.
Desobry was shocked by the scene: doors left open, showing remnants of people’s physical belongings. Beds, completely charred, children’s toys burned, melted televisions.
“It was pretty surprising to see a fire that bad, you know, basically destroy an entire building,” Desobry said.
The cause of the fire is undetermined and still under investigation, said Baton Rouge Fire Department spokesperson Justin Hill. Damages are estimated to be up to $2.5 million.
Inside an apartment in the Bradshaw complex that was destroyed on Jan. 21.
