Historic church demolished after fire
Historic church demolished after fire
07:19 AM CST on Tuesday, November 7, 2006
From 11 News Staff Reports
11 News reports: Jeremy Desel:
http://www.khou.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=99891&catId=35 | Wendell Edwards:
http://www.khou.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=99891&catId=35 | Raw video: Demolition:
http://www.khou.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=99917&catId=35
One of the original nine churches in Freedmen’s Town burned to the ground and was demolished Monday night.
Also online:
http://www.khou.com/topstories/vitindex.html
Slideshow: Church destroyed by fire near downtown Houston
http://www.khou.com/perl/common/slideshow/sspop.pl?recid=2141&location=www.khou.com
The Friendship Baptist Church in the 1300 block of Mathews at Ruthven, caught fire around 7 p.m. after what is believed to have been a lightning strike.
Once firefighters arrived, they never had a chance to go inside the building because the fire moved so fast. Now the church is completely gone.
It took crews most of the night to tear the building down completely. Officials said they had to tear it down because it was too unstable to leave it alone.
It is believed that fire was an accident, but arson and ATF personnel were on the scene to investigate.
Pastor Floyd N. Williams, II and four others were in the church when the lightning struck. The lights and power were out, so they crawled to safety.
“It’s just an empty feeling. It’s something you can’t do nothing about,” said Annie Mae Lewis, who was in the church for Monday night bible study.
“All of a sudden, it came this hard splash and it struck. It sounded like it was glass falling,” Lewis said.
Whatever it was, it was enough to strike bricks off the 70-year-old building. A town home next to the church had its miniblinds burnt because the flames were so hot. A duplex next door also caught fire.
“I can’t really. I mean, it’s tough,” said Pastor Williams.
He went next door to a church-owned duplex to get a family out.
Annie Mae Lewis also lived in the duplex, which was also on fire.
KHOU-TV
Friendship Baptist Church on fire Monday night.
After a quick visual inspection, they didn’t see any damage.
The fire went to a 3-alarm fire in very short order and the duplex next door, which the church owns, also caught fire.
Williams has been the pastor of the church for 27 years. The church was 103 years old.
Its oldest member is close to 90 years old.
The only known injury was a firefighter who suffered some sort of heart rhythm problem and was transferred to the hospital and is expected to be all right.
The church had just been given a national historic designation and the medal was already in Houston, ready to be presented at a ceremony.
