November 8, 1998
I'm always touched by how quickly people can lose their
lives, lose everything, of how a lifetime can just gone in a flash.
And then how it's just a note in the next day's newspaper, and then
gone from our thoughts forever.
Last Tuesday morning I had an unfortunate experience,
a chance again to witness just how all too often this happens. After
dropping Bethany off at child care, I looked down the street to see
a fresh plume of smoke mushrooming up into the sky. By the time I got
into the truck and started down the street, I heard sirens approaching,
and the billowing smoke cap turned into a steadily rising plume. Turning
the corner and driving a few blocks, I saw that a house was already
fully engulfed in flames. Totally involved. Rolling flames were shooting
out of the side of the house to such an extent that already start the
house next door was burning on both stories. I looked at my watch. It
was 8:06 a.m. I had time to shoot this and to see what was happening,
and still make it to work on time. It had been a long time since I'd
shot a structure fire, maybe since my days at The Palm Beach Post.
From the back of the truck I grabbed a Nikon film camera - instead of
the digital version of the same - with an 18mm super wide angle lens
and a roll of color negative film. I followed the arriving firefighters
up the drive where they hacked open the garage door and fought the flames
that rolled out and up. A fireball went up over their heads; I could
feel the intense heat pouring out from inside the house. I hit the shutter
and the motor
drive for a burst. Three, maybe four frames.
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Frames
#1, #2
and #3 as firefighters open a hole in the garage door and face
a fireball.
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This one had been burning for more than a few minutes,
but had just broken out through the house frame
minutes ago. A smoldering fire that just got a fresh supply of oxygen.
A fire department officer helped escort me back away from the flames
and to the curb. It was already too late: two elderly people inside
the house were dead. The house was gutted, and the house next door was
pretty well destroyed on most of the adjacent end.
It always amazes me how very very fast a house burns, and how little
time there really is to escape. I shot the rest of the action from the
curb, and from across the street. I heard them tell the police to call
the coroner.
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That means this would become a crime scene until ruled otherwise,
and it would be hours before they brought the bodies out. But
I knew that if anything was any good, it would be from those
first few frames. Otherwise, it was just another fire picture
from after-the-fact. And the newspapers around here usually
don't run body shots, so there was no need to stand around for
a couple of hours waiting.
I called The Chronicle on the cell phone and told them what
had happened, and then dropped the film off at their picture
desk on my way to work. They agreed about not waiting around
for the bodies to come out. But being election day, they were
swamped and the paper was full, so they couldn't promise whether
it would run or not. (I didn't know it ran until two days later).
I called on Wednesday and left my mailing address, hoping someone
would take the time to mail my film back to me. Two days later
when I dropped Bethany off at childcare, back in that neighborhood,
the baby-sitter's husband told me he saw the image in the newspaper.
So I stopped and got a back issue to see, and there it was.
My photo, and a
full-length story.
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Police
and firefighters look on from the street as a column of
smoke fills the clear morning sky. After knocking down the flames,
firefighters discovered the bodies of an elderly couple inside
the gutted house.
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Chronicle staff reporter Stacy Finz had followed up
the picture with a really good story about the deceased couple,
Tom and Katherine Sullivan. He was 83, she was 75. It turns out
that they were neighborhood fixtures, living in the same house since
the early 1950's. They had been one of the first families to buy
a new home on this street when it was first developed some forty-five
years ago. They were beloved by the whole area. He was a retired
postal supervisor. They were known for organizing the yearly block
party, and for their ballroom and swing dancing. Retired and growing
older, the story said he recently had a stroke that left him paralyzed
on the left. Neighbors said she was a heavy smoker, who used bottled
oxygen to help her breath. Neighbors said he still always got up
at 7:30 a.m. to fix their pot of tea. |
Reading that, I wondered what could have happened differently on this
morning that may have contributed to this disaster. Was it a cigarette
that started the fire, the tea pot, wiring, the furnace from the cold
night? Who knows. What struck me more was the sentence in the story
about them having no children. What, I wondered, would happen now? Who
would take care of their affairs, their remains?
I drove by what was left of the house that night, on the way home from
work and after picking up Bethany at childcare. Since the seasonal time
change, it's already dark by 5:30 p.m. There was just a hint of light
left in the western sky. Neighbors were standing around the sidewalk,
watching workmen who specialize in fire aftermath cleanup who were boarding
up the remains of the house, sweeping down the storm gutters, and the
electric company workers who were up on the pole with the wiring. Other
workers were trying to seal off the end of the neighbor's house which
had been burned. A television reporter from the local news was standing
underneath his spotlight, hands folded, waiting his turn to do a live
stand-up introduction from the scene for the taped and edited story
he had done in the afternoon.
The smell of burned wood permeated the air. From her car seat, Bethany
craned her neck to look out the window at the neighborhood gathering
as I slowly rolled by. It seemed like days ago, not just a few hours,
since I stood on that same sidewalk shooting pictures as all the flames,
smoke, and
noise and shouting of firefighters filled the air. Now it was dark and
quiet and cool, and a palpable sense of loss was starting to settle
in over the neighborhood. Tonight, for the first night in more than
four decades, Tom and Katherine Sullivan would not be at home on Lyons
Street in Redwood City, CA., and they would not be coming back. As I
turned the corner and headed for home, it occurred to me how quickly
this one incident in the history of Redwood City would be forgotten,
in the newspaper one day, gone the next. Recorded in words and pictures.
Just like the lives of the Sullivans.
November 7, 1998
Donald R. Winslow
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