With 3 youths dead in fire, NC public housing residents ask: Where were the alarms?

Julia Coin
·4 min read
2

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023, to reflect the names of the victims.

Cristiano Gray didn’t know the three youths who lived in the duplex next to him beyond a passing wave or smile, but he may have been the last voice they heard.

The 17-year-old rushed into the flaming home — owned and maintained by Concord under the Fair Housing Act — at about midnight Sunday. He’d just got off his Saturday night shift at Sonic.

“Is anybody in here?” he called out over and over while smoke fogged his eyes and filled his lungs.

The unit remained silent. There wasn’t a beep or a blare from the smoke detectors or fire alarms that should have been sounding, he said.

With burnt hands, he stumbled out of the door and fumbled to called 911.

Concord Fire Department found two siblings, an 11-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, dead inside. Their 16-year-old sister died at the hospital, officials said.

Their parents weren’t home during the fire. On Monday morning, their mother told The Charlotte Observer she wasn’t ready to talk to media yet.

On Tuesday afternoon, authorities identified the victims as Daniella Kueviakoe, 16, Emmanuelle Kueviakoe, 11, and 15-year-old Stephen Kueviakoe.

Concord and the Logan community will host a prayer vigil in the city’s Housing Department’s courtyard at 283 Harold Goodman Circle SW. on Friday, Aug. 25, at 5:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, Concord has partnered with Grace Lutheran Church in Concord to serve as the community-wide contact for donations. People wishing to offer support for the families may contact the Rev. Donald Anthony at 704-701-7167.

Cristiano Gray, 17, charged into the fire at Chapman Homes in Concord, N.C. on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023. He said he didn’t hear anything – no fire alarms or smoke detectors.
Cristiano Gray, 17, charged into the fire at Chapman Homes in Concord, N.C. on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023. He said he didn’t hear anything – no fire alarms or smoke detectors.

Did smoke alarms sound during the Concord house fire?

The cause of the fire remains under investigation. But neighbors are more concerned with why firetrucks — and not fire alarms — woke them up Sunday just after 1 a.m.

“They’re very loud,” said Tyeshia Lyles, 33. “There’s no way it could have been working when the fire was going on.”

Any time a fire alarm sounds, she and her three children hear it. The sound travels whether it’s coming from next door or the other side of the playground that sits in the middle of Chapman Homes’ 174 units.

“Yeah, we heard it just the other week,” said a neighbor, hanging laundry on outdoor clotheslines Monday afternoon.

Firefighters were dispatched to a city-owned Chapman Homes property on Lincoln St. SW in Concord, N.C., at 1:08 a.m. Sunday, August 20, 2023. Three children died in the fire, officials said.
Firefighters were dispatched to a city-owned Chapman Homes property on Lincoln St. SW in Concord, N.C., at 1:08 a.m. Sunday, August 20, 2023. Three children died in the fire, officials said.

The property’s smoke detectors worked the last time they were tested in January, said city spokesperson Lindsay Manson.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the unit’s last Real Estate Assessment Center inspection — which checks the community’s site, building exteriors, building systems, common areas and units — was in June 2022.

The inspections determine if communities qualify for continued benefits under its contract with the government, and “subtractions may be made from the overall score based on any present health and safety deficiencies,” according to the department.

Chapman’s Homes barely passed its 2016 REAC inspection with a 60 out of 100 score. That’s 22.4 points worse than the average for North Carolina, according to ProPublica’s 2019 “HUD House of Cards” project.

Gray didn’t realize how important were working smoke detectors, which he said are rare around the neighborhood, until Sunday.

“You realize... how many people would still be here right now if that one little sound would have went off,” he said.

‘It’s scary because it could have been anyone’s kids’

A couple doors down from the now-charred unit sat the youths’ neighbors, including their babysitter.

For years, the trio would come knocking on their screen door looking for a Popsicle or someone to play with, said Jonnie Grady, 72.

The 11-year-old girl would then run off to play with Kayla Lawson’s daughter on the neighborhood’s green and purple playground.

An empty playground sits behind a unit that caught fire in Concord, N.C., on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023. Three children died inside the unit, which is owned and maintained by the city.
An empty playground sits behind a unit that caught fire in Concord, N.C., on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023. Three children died inside the unit, which is owned and maintained by the city.

“It’s scary because it could have been anyone’s kids,” Lyles said.

As Lyles’ 10-year-old son, Kaden, hung up a blanket with Disney’s Frozen characters on it, a passing school bus floated a row of young children’s faces above the yellow tape surrounding the burnt unit and a melted Adirondack chair.

He said hadn’t shared a bus with the 11-year-old girl since she graduated to middle school, but they still saw each other at the bus stop every morning.

“Yeah... it was kinda weird not seeing her today,” he said.