Oakland Art Fire - Up to 40 Dead

[Yazata]

This was a large two story warehouse space, taken over by artists who used it as a live-work space and had turned the interior into an absolute maze filled with lofts, ladders and partitions. There was only one stairway connecting the interior floors and this was hand made and twisty (that made it cooler). Lots of loft spaces.

The exterior of the building was non-descript warehouse, but the interior appears to have been kind of magical, like another psychedelic little world (pure Oakland). Always another little opening leading to somewhere else. I love places like this. (I've never actually been in this one though.)

But it was also a fire-trap, quite literally.

I used to live in something similar in Southern California, in the early 1970's. That one was eventually ordered shut down by the fire inspectors. This Oakland place was filled with twenty-somethings and I can really relate to them. I can picture myself there among them.

Photos here -

http://www.oaklandghostship.com/

Well, Friday night they had music and were throwing a party, and there were an estimated 100 people in the building (nobody really knows) when a fire broke out. Apparently it was chaos, since it was said to be hard to find your way out in the best of times. That would be especially true for people who didn't live there and didn't know the lay-out. Flames spreading explosively, smoke filled the building. Firemen had trouble even getting in at all but counted nine corpses. 25 people have been reported missing but the police and coroners suspect the number of fatalities may reach 40. Part of the roof collapsed and some of the second floor collapsed onto the first, so it's difficult to enter and impassible inside. Reportedly 80% of it remains to be searched.

[Image: tumblr_oaeq732IaY1ucsb75o3_1280.jpg]

[RainbowUnicorn]

it looks like a magical world where harry potter and hobbit land meet.
soo much fuel for a fire. soo much very dry old wood.

[Yazata]

Latest word is that they have recovered 33 bodies, but it's only partially searched. There will be more.

One of the people who lived there there says the lights inside went out when the fire started (was it an electrical fire?) and people unfamiliar with the building were trying to find their way out of the maze in total darkness. This guy knew the layout and how to find the stairs down to the first floor, but people were panicking and pushing. He got out and found a flashlight in his car outside, and tried to go back inside to help people, but the smoke was so bad by that time he couldn't breathe.

The sad thing is that there are lots of live-work conversions like this in former industrial spaces all over Oakland, few of which have the necessary permits or are in compliance with the fire and building codes. It's one of the things that's made Oakland into kind of a hipster paradise. (High rents have squeezed the alternative 20-somethings out of San Francisco into Oakland like toothpaste out of a tube.)

Now there's going to be all kinds of irresistible political pressure to shut it all down.

[Yazata]

Two people, the so-called "master tenant" who rented the warehouse space from its owner and subleased the space to the other tenants, and his unofficial "creative director" who apparently helped (dis)organize it into its Ghostship form, have each been arrested and charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter. They, along with the owner and the city, also face all kinds of lawsuits.

Fire investigators haven't found the exact cause of the fire, but have traced it to a communal kitchen area on the first floor. By all accounts the fire was almost an inevitability, since the electrical wiring was a disaster waiting to happen, extension cords snaking all over the place all coming from one grieviously overloaded electric box.

The Oakland fire chief has already resigned since her fire inspectors never did their job inspecting this thing.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/05/gho...ed-36.html

[RainbowUnicorn]

Two people, the so-called "master tenant" who rented the warehouse space from its owner and subleased the space to the other tenants, and his unofficial "creative director" who apparently helped (dis)organize it into its Ghostship form, have each been arrested and charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter. They, along with the owner and the city, also face all kinds of lawsuits.

Fire investigators haven't found the exact cause of the fire, but have traced it to a communal kitchen area on the first floor. By all accounts the fire was almost an inevitability, since the electrical wiring was a disaster waiting to happen, extension cords snaking all over the place all coming from one grieviously overloaded electric box.

The Oakland fire chief has already resigned since her fire inspectors never did their job inspecting this thing.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/05/gho...ed-36.html

while political & comercial leaders mount battle crys for less regulation.