Metairie house fire attacked with garden hoses as firefighters ...

When an Old Metairie house caught fire during Hurricane Gustav, it fell to a 75-year-old woman who lived next door and Sheriff Newell Normand to fight it -- with garden hoses -- according to newly released records in a lawsuit over the 2008 incident. Jefferson Parish?firefighters were hunkered down in storm shelters, forbidden to respond by a policy suspending emergency services during the storm.

About an hour after the first 911 call, firefighters finally rolled out and extinguished the flames. But by then the rented home of Garrett and Monica Haab was destroyed.

The Haabs say Jefferson Parish poorly executed a flawed policy designed to safeguard its emergency responders during dangerous winds. The parish ignored milder conditions on the scene, rebuffed pleas for help from neighbors, Normand and a former fire chief and "nearly caused all of Old Metairie to go ablaze, which would have killed many people," the couple says.

Normand clearly thought the situation was absurd. A phone recording captured him directing a subordinate to call the fire chief, and spluttering: "I'm sitting out here with a motherf---king" garden hose."

As it turned out, no one was injured in the blaze, and it didn't spread beyond the Haab home at 412 Dorrington Blvd. But the dispute over whether the East Bank Consolidated Fire Department should have responded earlier continues to flare in court, where the Haabs are testing a state law that gives parish presidents extraordinary authority -- and shields the government from liability - during officially declared emergencies.

Jefferson Parish says it is immune from blame. It has asked Judge Conn Regan of the 24th Judicial District Court to dismiss the suit, asserting that the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance Disaster Act protects it; that both Gov. Bobby Jindal and then-Parish President Aaron Broussard had declared emergencies; and that residents were ordered to evacuate and warned to expect no services. The Haabs, in fact, did leave the state.

?"The decisions by the parish in this case were made to protect the safety and lives (of) firefighters during a hurricane event, which is a legitimate government objective grounded in social policy," Jefferson's legal counsel, Craig Watson, wrote in his motion.

In rebuttal, the Haabs' attorney, John Venezia, on Monday filed a 28-page motion and 30 exhibits, including affidavits and depositions from Normand; then-Fire Chief Dave Saunders; former Fire Chief Dan Civello; and the Haabs' next-door neighbor, Edward Martin, a physician whose family called 911 on Sept. 1, 2008. Flames erupted about 8:30 a.m. when a tree branch struck the electrical panel on the Haab house, but the Martins "were told no fire services were coming and that they should have evacuated," Venezia's motion says.

"Dr. Martin and his family went outside and felt that the wind was not blowing hard. Even Dr. Martin's 75-year-old mother could stand outside safely. ... These lay people tried to stop the fire from spreading, spraying water with garden hoses on Dr. Martin's home. Even the 75-year-old woman participated. They continued to call 911 ... without success."

Civello, a 30-year firefighter who was East Bank Consolidated's chief from 1986 to 1997, drove over from his house about two blocks away. An elected constable, he also called 911, saying the entire block was at risk. Normand and then-U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, who each live about a mile away, also showed up, as did sheriff's deputies.

As instructed, firefighters were sheltered at Ochsner Medical Center and East Jefferson General Hospital. But two of them "heard about the fire over the radio, disobeyed orders, stole an ambulance ... and came to the scene to help," according to Venezia's motion.

An audio recording from the parish's 911 communications center relates this exchange between the sheriff and Major Rick Moore.

Moore: "The Fire Department's dispatchers are saying that they are not sending any units over there. ... I'm sorry."
Normand: "They not, they not. So what: I'm gonna lose the whole f---ing block?"
Moore: "That's what they're telling me. Uh, they haven't heard from Saunders to do anything otherwise, but they're not rolling on it."
Normand: "Somebody needs to get f---king Dave Saunders on the phone!"
Moore: "OK."
Normand: "Dan Civello is sitting here right next to me saying this is a f---king joke."
Moore: "I can't believe it either."
Normand: "I mean, you know, it's ridiculous."
Moore: "You want us ... "
Normand: "I'm sitting out here with a motherf---king" garden hose."
Moore: "Jesus Christ! Let me see what I can do."

All Fire Department dispatching had ceased about three hours earlier, at 5:33 a.m., due to tropical storm-force winds. It wasn't until 11:18 a.m. that Emergency Management Director Ken Padgett lifted the order, according to the parish's records.

But just before 9 a.m., Saunders talked with his boss, then-Homeland Security Director Deano Bonano, and both drove over to investigate the Dorrington Boulevard fire. Bonano joined the garden-hose brigade, and Saunders summoned the first fire truck, which showed up at 9:43 a.m.

Firefighters eventually doused the fire, finally leaving at 11:42 a.m. Venezia estimates the "hard value" of the Haabs' losses at $400,000. That doesn't include sentimental value of items such as family pictures and Monica Haab's wedding dress.

Venezia argues that the suit should go to trial. While parish policy called for firefighters to remain sheltered when sustained winds exceeded 50 miles per hour, he suggests that Jefferson's anemometers - devices that measure wind speed, three of which failed on the day of the storm - were poorly positioned and were measuring gusts, not sustained wind. He asserts that the actual sustained wind speed at the time of the fire was as low as 25 mph.

And he says the state's emergency authority law doesn't protect the government for "acts or omissions which constitute criminal, fraudulent, malicious, intentional, willful, outrageous, reckless or flagrant misconduct." Civello signed an affidavit opining that five of those adjectives apply to the Fire Department's refusal to respond.

Three weeks after the fire, parish officials began revising their procedures, allowing individual fire chiefs to override the sheltering policy even when winds exceed 50 mph, according to Bonano's deposition.

Judge Regan has scheduled a March 12 hearing to determine whether to dismiss the suit.

Source: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2013/01/metairie_house_fire_attacked_w.html

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