three alarm fire near work today

i don't know how newsworthy it is but its made the news in both NJ and NY here. (Jim you might have seen this) BUt there was a 3 alarm fire in the apartments behind the mall where i work. i finished ringing someone up and looked out in the parking lot and it looked like the mall was smoking! (we're a free standing store,not inside the mall)black smoke was just pouring up to the sky. it was like that for at least 2 hrs. I feel bad for the folks who live over there. 20 units were either burned,water or smoke damaged. they say all but two or three people are going to stay with family or friends but the ones who don't have anyone the Red Cross is helping.
this is one of the complexes that has some HUD units in it and since they're in the front of the complex and that's where the smoke was coming from i'm wondering if some of those are the folks out on the street now. not going to be easy to find them a new place to live cuz there's nothing to get in this town and the lists waiting are pages and pages long. esh.

Hi jeane - No, that didn't make the news in Philly - my main news comes from Philly stations - we're far enough south that NYC stuff doesn't count - for example, there has been 5 multi-alarm fires in Camden City in the past two months - that didn't make the NYC news, right? Only thing from NYC that makes it down here are tornados and planes crashes (well, not exactly, but close! )

Jim

I bet those are the folks on the streets Jeane, HUD units are hard to come by and takes years of waiting to get in. Where will those folks go now, they can't afford the usual rents out there, and the Red Cross will only help for so long. I do know if your homeless you go to the top of the list for a HUD unit when it becomes available, problem is they don't become available very often.

I dread if my building burned down with all the careless smokers we have in here, I'd be on the streets for good until they got rebuilt (if they actually replaced them). I also have nowhere to go if that happened, so I can really feel for those folks that lost their homes.

jim do you get channel 12 news? i know its only on cable never on sattelite (that's their catch phrase)...but its the all NJ news all the time channel. it was on there.
here's a link to a story a friend sent me this morning... http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=8244002&syndicate=syndicate§ion
but gawd the crap they had set up and all the hoopdedoo with the fireman you'd think that the whole block was burning! it was one section of (now i hear on this report) condos not the entire apt complex. esh...

Good grief, Jeane, I just caught up with this. Glad everybody is ok and hopefully
the Red Cross will find places for them.

jeane - down here ch 12 is the pbs station, so it has everything public - news, kiddies stuff, art & science, etc. The NJ station is/was ch 23 but I understand the NJ part of it went away because of the budget crunch.

Jim

Do they have any idea what started the fire? I know an attic fire can total an entire building since there are no walls to slow it down. Was it just the high heat that started it or was somebody up there when it started?

jim the pbs station that changed was channel 8 here...its different numbers in different part of the state:)
the news station i think you'd know if you had it cuz it is just news all day mon-fri and Sat and Sun it has little shows sprinkled in like the Pet Stop which Patrick has been on a few times. (wish it were more often! the show is perfect for him and i believe its filmed near where he lives). i need to go over and see if i can find a link to the site.

fiff i haven't heard if they know how it started. i'd say probably it was so hot and there was probably a lot of junk up in that attic and something caught fire.

It didn't make the news here either Jeane.

it made the NY tv news....it was on all the major NY news in the evening. that's where i actually saw the chunk of apartments. probably didn't make the papers though.

well, of course I don't have TV and I didn't hear it on the radio or in the papers

I know they'll probably condemn the building since the roof collapsed. Imagine how those poor people feel. They probably won't even let them back in to try to salvage what they can of their things. I'd be devastated if that happened to me, wouldn't you?

if it was just the roof they might not have to condemn it....after all it was in an attic. they could always build the top part again and leave off the stupid attic. (open attics where anyone who lives in the building can store stuff is just looking for something to happen..esh...i'd be worried some wierdo would be living up there and peeking through holes at me!)

With all the smoke and water damage the entire building will have to be either condemned or really rehabbed to be habitable again. Otherwise you're looking at a lot of black mold growing in between the walls....not good.

who now what they'll do...if they tear it down it would take years to get it rebuilt (everything seems to take years here....the turnpike hasn't been back to normal since they tore it up over 5 yrs ago...the house behind us has been being built for at least three or four years....there's a place i only see the skeleton of whenever i go into work ...it looks like a barn but i think it was supposed to be a house...that's been like that since i moved here!).