Fire

Updated June 29, 2010

In 1989, voters in Jefferson Davis Parish, Ward 3, approved a $400,000 bond for major renovations needed for the fifty-year old building. Approximately one month after passage of the bond, on November 26, 1989, a fateful early afternoon thunderstorm rolled through Southwestern Louisiana and left three-quarters of Hathaway High School in ruins. The thunderstorm smacked an intense electrical strike to the roof atop a classroom on the southeastern corner of the building, igniting the tar and gravel rooftop.

Several people documented the fire with their video cameras. One of the videos began recording about 2:30 p.m. By this time, the slate tiles on the southeast corner of the school were gone and heavy, heavy black smoke was bursting from behind the crown at the center of the building. Heavy black smoke continued from the south side of the building. Huge flames intermittently raised into the heavy black smoke. People were running in and out of the front door removing filing cabinets, a television, desks, more files, all the while heavy black smoke billowed into the sky directly above them. Fire fighters were coming in and out of the door on the second floor fire escape, which was just outside the north wall of the classroom where the fire began.

The call went in at 1:30 p.m. (presumably, the storm knocked out power at 12:40 p.m., according to several clocks found later). A passerby saw the fire and alerted Lynette Litteral, a neighbor of the school, who immediately called the Jennings Fire Department. The fire department’s response time was eight minutes. When the first firemen arrived, they rushed to the southeast corner to a second floor classroom to try and contain the fire. The firefighters in the southeast classroom thought they had the fire out, except for some flames on the northwest corner of the classroom. Meanwhile, a group of firemen tore through the ceiling of a classroom two doors down to battle whatever was left of the blaze. What they found was the biggest problem inside the building--the attic! The fire had spread down the front of the building.

The biggest problem they faced outside the building was getting water to fight the flames. There were two fire hydrants near the school, but more water was needed. The same storm that started the fire would be main source of water to put the fire out. The storm had swollen the drainage ditches around the school enough that water could be pumped from the ditch to the hoses. Seventy-three firemen from Jennings, Mermentau, Andrus Cove, Fenton, Lake Arthur, Evangeline, Elton, Roanoke, Thornwell, Basile and Welsh came to save Hathaway High School.

There were times when progress against the fire was noticeable. When more white smoke billows from the fire that means water is suppressing the fire and steam predominates. The most progress was being made against the fire at the center of the building by a water hose that was run up the fire escape into the building. For a time, no black smoke could be seen. But this did not last long. The flames were back to raging a short time later. Then white smoke emerged again. Flurries of black smoke escaped through the white smoke. The white smoke was mostly coming from the front edges of the building while the deeper parts of the building out of the reach of the fire hoses were billowing black smoke. You could see the battle playing out before your eyes. Back and forth, back and forth. Hoping against hope.

By this time, the fire had jumped the hall casing across from where the fire began to the school's library on the southwest corner of the building. Needless to say the flames burst from the roof and had quickly burned away areas of the slate tile edging the south side of the building. Firefighters had positioned themselves on the roof with a fire hose pointed directly into the fire through the opened roof. White smoke was rising but no fire was raging high above the roof. Suddenly, a powerful, raging fireball on the front side of the library blasted from the roof, pouring heavy, heavy black smoke into the sky. The strong flames persisted for quite a while. Some have commented that the fire caught on to some type of accelerant. The floor of the library had recently been revarnished and some speculate that buckets varnish had been stored in a nearby storage room. Whatever was burning, it was highly flammable and concentrated near the area of the storeroom between the library and the front classroom where the fire had begun.

When the camera moved to film the firefighters battling the blaze in the library, the angle permitted the either hopeful or disheartening perspective of the front half of the building. There was constant gray haze covering the front of the building and the immediate sky above. Another camera angle had zoomed into the second floor windows about this same time and showed remnants of what had fallen into the room burning in small patches of fire.

Firefighters had one hose constantly dousing water in through front windows that had been broken and another had been positioned to shoot water high in the air to acheive a trajectory that put water over the edge of the roof into the center of the building. The hope was that progress was being made against the fire, the disheartening truth was that most of the flammable tar roof had burned away on the front half of the building and the guts of those classrooms had been charred.

The flames above the roof of the library persisted. The windows of the library continued to show the despair of the single stream of water that disappeared into the roof top of the library with less and less white smoke to show for its efforts. It was not long until heavy black smoke was pouring from the rear corner of the library, except the smoke was not from the library. The fire had jumped to the roof of the gymnasium, one of the main gathering places of the community. For what seemed like a solid hour, heavy, heavy black smoke took over the sky. Flames engulfed the asbestos roof and a constant popping sound filled the air.

On the western end of the gymnasium behind the stage was the music room addition, but was being used as the kindergarten classroom. Here too, people had been into the classroom and cleared all the materials and some furniture and stored it in the bus barn nearby. The western wall of the addition was all windows. As the black smoke billowed from the roof of the gym, small patches of orange flames began to appear on the wall through the windows. Soon the entire wall was ablaze. Then the flames took over the room and began bolting out the window on the south end of the room.

After the massive flames had destroyed the gym and the music room, the last flames that burned above the school's roof were on its northern end. By that time, the clouds had cleared and the sun was beginning to set. Flames continued to rise up at the north end of the building occassionally, as the rest of the building simmered. A light northerly wind carried a constant train of smoke into the sky. When night fell, hoses continued to soak the building and huge flood lights were set up on the northern corner of the school grounds. Fire fighters continued into the night. Parts of the building simmered until morning. It had been a grueling day for everyone involved.

Assessing the damage days after the fire perched from a mobil tower, the camera found no roof on the second floor of the building, except for the middle hallway. The most distinctive sign of destruction was the crumpled girders that dipped into the gym. Amazingly enough, there were still parts of books left on the floor of the library, some had even crumbled into the gym when the wall between the gym and the library had given way. Facing the building from the ground, the sight of daylight through the front windows was eerie. The front ediface and the building's center crown still stood. In fact, the front ediface still stands today.

One final note on the fire. Every tragedy can carry the potential for a miracle. This tragedy had one thanks to a firewall, saving the trophy case containing years and years of awards and the retired jersey of Stephanie Avant, a daughter, sister, athlete, babysitter, student, friend, and for whom Hathaway’s most prized athletic award is named.