FIRE DESTROYS MCCLURE MOTEL OFFICE; OWNER WANTED WATER

MCCLURE, ILL., -- Bill Spraggs, owner of Bill's Motel north of McClure, said a fire that destroyed the motel's front office Monday wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the East Cape Girardeau-McClure Water District.

Spraggs said he signed an agreement with the water district to get hooked up to a water line more than a year ago when he first bought the motel.

"We signed the paper and (a representative of the water district) said water would be through in a couple of months," Spraggs said. "That was over a year ago. They said they were going to get to it and they keep saying it. "If we had water here that fire wouldn't have happened."

McClure-East Cape Girardeau Fire Chief Stanley Mouser said the fire probably started because of an electrical short. The office was nearly fully involved when the first truck, carrying 500 gallons of water, arrived. Firefighters from McClure, East County Fire District in Missouri and Ware-Wolf Lake Fire Protection District did what they could to control the blaze but having enough water would have done even more.

"We could have hooked right on to (a water line)," Mouser said. "It doesn't take but a second to knock 500 gallons out of your tank. The tanker's got 2,200 gallons and that can help a lot. But if you have a water line and you had a hydrant sitting out here and you hook into that hydrant you've got 200,000 gallons of water."

Mouser said firefighters, who had to rotate in water with the tankers, were never able to control the fire and concentrated instead on protecting the motel rooms, which were separated from the office by a five-foot alley.

"All we could do was put what water we had on protecting this building here," Mouser said, indicating the rooms. "They lost that (the office), but it could have been worse."

Spraggs said he noticed the fire around 1:30 p.m. as he and his wife, Ann, were cleaning some of the motel's rooms adjacent to the office. When he first saw the fire it was little more than a line of smoke running up from the northeast corner of the building.

"We've got a garden hose over here, and I could have done something but I haven't got any water pressure," he said. The firefighters could have put it out if they had water, he said.

Ted Swanner, a construction observer for R.A. Nack Engineering of Carbondale, said a plan for extending the district's water lines out to north McClure had been stalled for a few months as the water district's engineers and lawyers have been trying to get a right of way cleared.

Swanner said state funds have been appropriated and the plans have been completed, but three or four property owners situated between the south water plant and Shawnee Elementary School have not granted the district a leeway through their properties so engineers can connect to the plant. He said in many cases it has been impossible to contact the owners because many of them live out of the state or there are multiple owners of a single lot, and all of them have to agree to the right of way.

Marsha Moore, secretary for the East Cape Girardeau-McClure Water Board also said some of the owners have been asking for the district to pay for the rights of way, which would set a precedent the district cannot afford.

"We wouldn't have a problem paying for a few rights of way, but if you pay for one you have to pay for them all," Moore said.

Swanner said the plan has been backed up a year because of the leeway delays. He did say there were plans to connect Bill's Motel as soon as September.

"We have been trying to get a line out to Bill's Motel for a while now because he's one of the few businesses out in that area," Swanner said. The motel would have been hooked up even without the line from the water plant going through.

The water district had appropriated state funds as a result of the flood of 1993, Swanner said. The district's project was to provide water lines to areas that might have had contaminated wells due to the flooding.

Spraggs said he and his wife had been hounding the water district to complete the extension.

"Our water is rusty and it smells; we have to buy water for our rooms," he said. "We've been after them about every week for over a year."