Menu
Indianola city office, grocery destroyed
INDIANOLA -- Indianola lost its only grocery store and its city office and city shop Sunday morning in a fire that crept first above the suspended ceiling of the grocery store.
Fire Chief Tom Davidson blamed the fire on an overheated ballast in a ceiling light fixture in the Countryside Market grocery store. The roof of the store was involved when someone spotted flames from the Rocket Inn, half-a-block south of the grocery store on Main Street, at 11:20 p.m., Saturday.
Davidson was very appreciative of his firefighters' actions and additional equipment and manpower from McCook, Bartley and Beaver Valley.
"McCook's aerial was really, really nice," Davidson said. The aerial ladder truck allowed firefighters to attack the quickly-spreading fire from above. "That helped us a lot," Davidson said.
Davidson said initially his firefighters donned air packs for an interior attack at the grocery store. "But we came back out," Davidson said. "There was nothing to save inside. There was no use risking lives for things."
The fire spread quickly from the grocery store to the adjacent city building, Davidson said, because the grocery store and city office/shop share the same north/south wall and the same roof.
Davidson said firefighters dumped 500,000 gallons of water on the blaze through the night. Water pressure could have become a problem, Davidson said, if the city's second well hadn't kicked in.
Nebraska State Fire Marshal Del Cerney of Arnold assisted Davidson with the investigation of the cause of the fire. Grocery store owner Jim McCarville told investigators his children left the store about 8:30 p.m., Saturday, and he came after that and then left about 10:30 p.m.
Davidson said the ballast had to have ignited the ceiling tile before the lights were turned out. The fire spread through the four-foot space between the suspended tile ceiling and the roof, and "had to have been burning for quite a while," Davidson said, before it was discovered.
Firefighters brought the blaze under control about 4 a.m., and doused hotspots until they left the scene at 6 p.m., Sunday.
Also destroyed in the fire was a vacant painted-brick building on the south side of the city shop. The building housed a feed-and-seed store and an amusement store in the past.
The McConville (Insurance) Agency, in a metal building on the north side of the grocery store, was damaged by smoke and water.
Not damaged by flames were the fire station and community building on the north end of the block and the post office on the south.
The grocery store is owned by Indianola Economic Development and rented by McCarville. Nothing could be salvaged from the grocery store.
City Clerk Ona Malleck said she stood on Main Street during the early-morning blaze and cried, watching "my second home for 30 years" go up in smoke. It was horrible."
Malleck and assistant clerk Deanna Brown sorted through the remains of the office Sunday morning, and were pleasantly surprised by what they could save.
"More than I thought," Malleck said, choking back the tears. "We can be thankful for small favors. It gives us some place to start."
Malleck said many things in the vault -- including money -- and files in fireproof cabinets are singed or damp, but are salvageable.
Malleck said they saved a file on the community's proposed new fire station. "We lost the contracts," she said, "but they can be replaced."
Some computer equipment was salvaged, but no one knew Sunday how much information could be retrieved from computer records.
Pulled from the wreckage was a framed 1914 Indianola street map and a framed photograph of the 1904 Indianola band. The glass of each was covered with soot, but unbroken.
Destroyed in the city shop was the city's backhoe, ditcher and lawn mowers, along with innumerable tools.
The city office will be set up temporarily in the community building, and Mike Manker of Great Plains Communication had the city's telephone and fax lines rerouted there by mid-morning Sunday.
"It's the end of the month," Malleck said, "and we've lost our computers."
Residents won't be getting their bills for a time, she said.
One of the community's two tornado towers sits on a power pole behind the city shop, and no one knew Sunday whether it had been damaged by the heat of the blaze.
The community will feel the loss of its only grocery store and its city office and shop, but the fire won't stop it.
"It's emotional. We're devastated and we're in shock now," said Mike Harris, president of the Indianola city council. "But, notice how people gather? We'll unite."
"We're a tough little town," Harris said. Indianola Mayor Cliff Lord said Indianola lost a lot when Coon Creek flooded in 1948 and when a tornado hit several years ago. Lord said, "We'll come back from this ... sure."