- A plane crash near Stooges Bar & Grill in Louisville resulted in at least nine fatalities.
- The bar’s owner, Debbie Self, learned of the crash while at dinner and rushed toward the scene.
- Everyone at the bar was evacuated safely, and the building narrowly avoided being hit.
- The business will remain closed until further notice as emergency officials secure the area.
As soon as Debbie Self got the phone calls about a plane crash near Stooges Bar & Grill, the bar she’s owned for over 40 years, she left a cousin’s birthday dinner at Texas Roadhouse and drove toward the billowing dark clouds in the sky. From about three miles away, she noticed the stench of smoke before she got a good look up.
“I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is bad,’” Self, 76, told the Courier Journal.
While she couldn’t get close to the building at 7123 Grade Lane, among the closest businesses to the deadly UPS cargo plane crash site, she heard on Tuesday evening from a bartender that everyone at Stooges evacuated safely.
Self then turned on the TV, and, like others around the city and world, watched the horrifying scene that left, to date, at least nine people dead and others critically injured.
“It looked like it was going to get my building,” Self said of her sports bar, a popular hangout for Ford and UPS Worldport employees who work nearby. “It really did.”
Underneath the roaring smoke and fire, she saw her white building with a green roof and backyard volleyball courts, where patrons usually excitedly wave to planes passing above their heads, was still standing.
“I can’t believe it’s still there,” she said.
Family members, friends, customers and onlookers couldn’t believe it either, according to hundreds of phones calls and messages checking in on Self.
And when Gov. Andy Beshear told CNN News Central on Wednesday that the situation “could be way worse,” he recognized that the crash narrowly missed buildings such as Stooges.
“It’s hard to lose nine plus people in such a violent way,” Beshear said. “But let me tell you, this plane barely missed a restaurant bar.”
A Facebook post, made at around 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4, from Stooges asking for “prayers for Stooges to not get hit” and “prayers for the pilots and their families, and all the first responders” has garnered more than 2,000 reactions.
As of Wednesday morning, Stooges is still intact, though Self doesn’t know the extent of any damage to the building. Emergency officials would not let her on Grade Lane or near her establishment as of 7 a.m., she said.
“It looks like Stooges is sitting in a war zone,” she said. “That’s what it looks like to me.”
On Wednesday morning, Self also updated the bar’s 20,000 Facebook followers, saying, “Stooges appears to be okay, but we have not been allowed back in yet.” The business will be closed until further notice.
For now, Self said she’s worried about the future of her business, her longtime customers, her employees, and her city.
“My heart has been so heavy,” she posted on Facebook.
In a break from phone calls and watching the “devastation” on Tuesday, Self said she sat down and bawled her eyes out. And she prayed, which she says she’ll continue to do.
“It’s one of the roughest things I think I’m ever going to go through,” she said. “Never, ever, ever do I want to experience anything like this again. I’m so sorry for the loss of life. It’s heartbreaking.”
Reach reporter Amanda Hancock at ahancock@courier-journal.com.
