ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 3, 1996 TAG: 9604030042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
note: below
TAFT WALKER'S HOME OF 40 YEARS went up in smoke last month. Now he's asking what Roanoke's all-fired hurry was to demolish the rest of it.
The worst moment in Taft Walker's long life was the November death of his wife of 48 years, Fannie Walker.
The second worst was a March 21 fire that destroyed the home they had shared for almost 40 years on Rorer Avenue Southwest. Walker barely escaped the early-morning blaze, leaving his false teeth and glasses behind as he struggled out of the house before dawn.
The final blow, Walker says, came last week. Only six days after the fire, the city had a contractor tear down what remained of the house.
The wrecking crew carried away a fireproof box of precious papers that Walker had saved over his 85 years. Among them were his wife's birth and death certificates.
And the house came down before Walker's insurance adjuster could figure out how much it would cost to rebuild.
The only thing left is an empty lot behind four painted concrete stairs. Walker can't visit it without shedding a tear or two.
"I don't care to go through all that no more," the retired city schools custodian said, his voice cracking as he surveyed the lot Tuesday.
"I feel awful bad about it, but there's nothing I can do," he said. "Why did they do it so quick? They didn't let me know anything about it."
That's a question echoed by Posey Oyler, a contractor and insurance adjuster who was hired to assess the fire damages.
And by George McGhee, Walker's nephew, who has taken his uncle in.
Walker had "replacement" insurance, which means his insurer will pay the full cost of having the house rebuilt. But it will be harder to come up with a replacement cost because the house is gone.
Oyler said he probably can figure out a rough estimate because Walker's house was very similar to his neighbor's.
"We'll come up with the square footage, but it wasn't done like it should have been," Oyler said. "I just don't understand the rush.
But Oyler said it's also outrageous that the city "didn't even give [Walker] time to get his stuff together. A man who's 85 has got to have time to get his stuff together."
Dan Pollock, housing development coordinator for the city, said Walker's home had to come down quickly because the remains represented an imminent danger to the public.
"In this case, the building was so severely damaged that it called for expeditious action," Pollock said. "There's other buildings that have been left in place for years because the damage wasn't as severe."
Oyler cited the Hotel Earle as an example of a Roanoke building that stood for years after it burned.
Walker had told an inspector he couldn't take it down, Pollock said. "Our preference is, sure, for the owner to take care of it. But when he says he's unable or not intending, we're not going to dance around trying to get him into court."
But McGhee said he had arranged for a friend to tear the house down. If Walker told the inspector he couldn't arrange it, "it was because he didn't have the money. But I had the money." The wrecker was going to give Walker some time to go through the burned hulk and see if he could salvage anything, McGhee said.
Pollock also said the city had no idea Walker had insurance.
"Quite frankly, it wasn't something we had asked about," Pollock said.
City code requires that building owners be given proper notice before any action is taken to tear down a house.
McGhee questions whether Walker got it.
The city sent Walker a certified letter dated March 22, the day after the fire, giving him 48 hours to appeal the demolition order. An appeal would have delayed the demolition for 21 days.
But the letter wasn't postmarked until March 25. And the Post Office didn't attempt delivery until March 26. Nobody was home at McGhee's house that day, so the mail carrier left a notification slip instead.
McGhee and Walker picked up the letter at the Post Office on March 27, after workers had begun to demolish the house.
They learned the house was gone later that day, after Walker's granddaughter drove past and saw the wrecking crew. She called Walker and McGhee.
"To me, there needs to be better communication between the city and property owner," McGhee said.
Because of the "misunderstanding," Pollock said, the city has waived a 20 percent surcharge it normally levies when owners refuse to arrange for necessary building demolitions.
"I'm sorry that he didn't go in there and get what he needed to after the fire," Pollock said. "Granted, two weeks would have given him more time to do that than he had."
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff This is all Taft Walker has leftby CNBof the house that once stood at 1223 Rorer Ave. S.W. color