12/12/99

By Alexander Lane
STAFF WRITER

First, a fatal plane crash terrified an entire neighborhood. Then, 30 hours later, a wind-whipped overnight blaze gutted the borough's historic municipal building.

Hasbrouck Heights struggled to catch its breath yesterday after coping with back-to-back disasters, each shocking enough to test a town to its core.

''It's like a bad dream, it's unreal," a bleary-eyed borough Councilman John Wassberg said yesterday as he surveyed the building's smoking wreckage. Wassberg said he had been up all night, too shocked to sleep after Friday night's fire. "I was staring at the ceiling, saying, 'What's going to happen next?'"

Seven volunteer firefighters had just finished critiquing their department's response to Thursday's plane crash, which killed all four people aboard, and were leaving the building about 11:30 p.m. Friday when one of the volunteers noticed flames shooting out of the window of the Council Chambers. They raced for their equipment and sounded the alarm.

As winds of up to 46 mph fanned the flames, all 47 of Hasbrouck Heights' firefighters and 125 from 19 other departments in the area wrestled the blaze, which went to six alarms before being declared under control about 4 a.m.

''These guys haven't got any sleep in two days." Mayor William Torre said.

The Bergen County arson squad spent the day scouring the building, so far unsuccessfully, for clues to the cause of the fire. Such an investigation is routine and there is no reason at this point to suspect arson, Torre said.

Although no one was injured, the 95-year-old municipal building was declared a total loss and may be razed, depending on an engineer's assessment. All that remained yesterday was the brick façade studded with empty window frames, and a gaping expanse where the roof, topped by a soaring 30-foot cupola, once stood.

The wing of the building that housed the fire department, municipal court and offices of the entire borough government was gutted. The police headquarters also was badly damaged, and the department was operating yesterday out of trailers on a basketball court across the street.

Many records and files kept on paper were soaked by water used to quench the flames, but Torre said most of the records necessary for borough operations either were saved or had duplicates.

''All of our really important information was backed up on tape drives," Torre said. "Our health statistics for local residents that date back to 1900 were on microfiche off- site."

Brand new computers and servers had just been purchased for the police department for 2000, Torre said. Damage to the new computers hadn't been determined. All of the building's computers were pulled out, and a contractor will remove the hard drives to see what information is retrievable.

''A company will try to catalog and restore records, but our computers in our tax and finance offices were okay," Torre said.

After spending the morning salvaging records and charred memorabilia, the volunteers gathered for an impromptu prayer service at the flagpole in front of the building.

''I've got to invite you to say your own prayers," the Rev. Joe Pickard of St. John's Episcopal Church told them. "You've got experiences and memories that only you can relive."

The faces were etched with exhaustion and grief, and several volunteers wiped away tears. Many had worked all night Thursday and all day Friday cleaning up after a Beechcraft Baron 58TC, carrying four Virginia residents toward Teterboro Airport, plunged into a back yard between Washington Place and Central Avenue and exploded in a fireball.

National Transportation Safety Board officials, who are still investigating the cause of the crash, said Friday that the pilot, Paul Pedersen, 37, disregarded the instructions of air traffic controllers and made a wrong- way final approach before veering off. The plane, dropping off radar, plummeted to the ground, killing Pedersen and his three passengers, all from the Richmond area.

No one on the ground was hurt by the impact, which demolished a garage and ignited a stand of trees, but three rescuers suffered minor burns and injuries.

Fire Chief Vincent Monahan said yesterday that some of his crew members had already undergone counseling to deal with the horror of the crash scene.

And now they must deal, too, with the loss of the building they considered a second home.

As a stream of stunned residents wandered up to the yellow police tape to gaze at the burned- out building, firefighters pulled a few mementos from the rubble. On the ground by one of the trucks sat a broken glass frame containing pictures of the squad helping to fight the 1978 fire at the Champion Building Products warehouse in Teterboro.

''I feel as bad as I would if I lost my home, if not worse," retired fireman Tom Rubino said. The charred fire headquarters had housed some 60 framed newspaper clippings of fires past and two silver antique speaking trumpets.

Brenda Colinari, 42, who was born and raised in the borough as the daughter of a firefighter, reminisced about sitting in headquarters with other children and watching "The Wonderful World of Disney" just after color television debuted. "And we had such a nice courtroom" with wood paneling and a large wooden dais and desks that lent dignity to the council meetings that it also hosted. "I liked that about it."

Borough attorney Ralph Chandless, 54, remembered playing around the construction site when a wing was added onto the building in the early 1950s. "In its construction and design it was conservative and solid, and that's what the borough administration has been for the last 100 years," Chandless said.

''It was always a great feeling of continuity to see the building grow with the town, so this is very emotional," said Assemblywoman Rose Heck, a former Hasbrouck Heights mayor. "I'm heartbroken. When I got the call last night, it shook me, and I'm still shaken."

The town will find temporary office space to rent, Torre said. Council meetings will be conducted at the nearby Masonic Hall, and municipal court sessions will be in Wood-Ridge.