By Trymaine Lee
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
A popular 7th Ward chicken restaurant in the 1400 block of North Broad Street caught fire Thursday evening, making it the eighth structural fire in New Orleans in two days, according to fire officials.
About 70 firefighters fought back flames at McHardy’s chicken restaurant at 1458 N. Broad St. near Bayou Road, in a commercial stretch with both vacant and occupied buildings.
McHardy’s exasperated owner of five years, Kermit Mogilles, and dozens of exhausted New Orleans firefighters stood along the neutral ground across from the business Thursday about 7:45 p.m., staring at the flame-gnarled pistachio-green siding now bitten through by flames.
The fire tore up a side wall into a second story of the mostly wooden building, which abuts the washed-out Positive Vibrations cultural shop, which was spared the wrath of the blaze but not several feet of floodwater that welled up in the neighborhood after Hurricane Katrina last summer, forcing it out of business.
Mogilles’ frustration showed on his face, while the faces of many of the firefighters were heat-blown and tired.
New Orleans Fire Department Deputy Chief Joe Buras said a third alarm was called Thursday to relieve firefighters who had been wading all day in the summer heat and had responded to an earlier warehouse fire at 4620 D’Hemecourt.
It was simply too hot, Buras said.
“But it comes with the territory,” he said. “These guys are used to it.” Many of the firefighters at McHardy’s also fought another three-alarm fire earlier in the day, Buras said.
McHardy’s employees said no one inside the building realized flames were roaring between the wallboards, roof and an unoccupied apartment above the store until a passer-by ran up, banged on the glass front door and screamed fire. Toure DeVore, 29, Mogilles’ nephew, who has worked at the family restaurant since January, said he was in the kitchen scrubbing the grease-covered back wall near the fryers as he does every Thursday when the man alerted them to the flames licking through the roof and side of the building.
DeVore said the fire took from the neighborhood something desperately needed after Katrina: a sense of community.
“A lot of people come from across the river to eat here,” DeVore said. “And a lot of people come here and end up running into people they haven’t seen in awhile because of the storm.”
DeVore said he helped his uncle restore the restaurant, which took in about 3 to 4 feet of floodwater, with his bare hands and that it “hurt” to see it so badly damaged. The store reopened Jan. 5, he said.
“We smelled something but didn’t know what it was at first,” said Ariana Fortune, 21, a McHardy’s employee of four years who said her gig at the restaurant was her “first and only job.”
“Then the customer came running in and at that point I was scared,” she said.
Mogilles blames the city’s dysfunctional power grid, which he said has left his shop powerless several times in the past two weeks. He thinks a power surge shot through the electric lines and ignited something in his building.
“It’s frustrating,” Mogilles said. “People aren’t mad enough, demanding more from the city. We need to be saying, ‘Enough.’ If Entergy can’t provide us with consistent service, basic needs, then they should get out so we can bring in someone who can.”
Firefighters received the call at 6:55 p.m. and were on the scene 11 minutes later, Buras said. The cause of the fire was still under investigation, he said.
Though Mogilles said it is likely that “we’ll be back,” he said that given New Orleans’ damaged infrastructure, he might take his business to another city that can provide the basic necessities to run a small business, such as consistent electrical power.
“It might not be worth staying,” he said. “It might be time for us, for people to say enough.”