Betty Callahan arrived at her Hampden church before firefighters did early yesterday morning, only to see "fire tongues" licking the base of the steeple and then engulfing the 130-year-old bell tower and slate roof in flames.
Minutes later, about 6:30 a.m, firefighters were dousing Mount Vernon United Methodist Church at 801 W. 33rd St., as evacuated neighbors looked on in the gray dawn.
"It looked like Niagara Falls," said Callahan, the church's lay leader and treasurer, of the water shooting from the 15 fire engines called to the scene. "And then the slates came down."
The three-alarm fire, which erupted amid an intense lightning storm, destroyed the historic church, causing an estimated $5.5 million in damage and leaving church leaders shaken but vowing to rebuild.
"In the midst of darkness, we believe in hope, and hope is certainly here today," said the Rev. Robin Johnson later in the morning, as members of his small but active congregation stood in the street gazing up at the charred steeple, shattered stained-glass windows and exposed roof beams.
Four hours after they arrived, firefighters were still spraying water into the smoking steeple, sending slate tiles and shards of timber falling to the street below. The stone base of the building appeared undamaged, but many beams were reduced to smoking embers.
There were no reports of injuries or damage to nearby properties, fire officials said. People living in rowhouses nearby were evacuated for several hours.
Fire Department Division Chief Reginald L. Session said the cause of the fire was under investigation, but several people who live nearby reported being awakened by multiple cracks of lightning about 5:30 a.m., during a brief but fierce storm that swept the region.
Session said there was one other minor fire reported early yesterday morning, in Northeast Baltimore. About 28,000 BGE customers, mostly in the city and Baltimore County, temporarily lost power during the storm, according to the utility company's Web site.
Despite the ferocity of the thunderstorm, there was little major damage reported elsewhere in the region, said a Fire Department spokesman, Chief Kevin Cartwright. "There was no reported flooding or wires down, or trees down," he said. Fire officials in Baltimore County said some utility poles were knocked down, but that no major incidents were reported.
