By Alexis Terrazas and Joel Angel Juárez
Milagro Rodriguez celebrated her birthday Feb. 5 the best she could from the confines of the emergency shelter at the Salvation Army’s Mission Corps Community Center—barely two blocks from the building she called home just eight days prior.
“I was asleep when the fire happened,” said Rodriguez, remembering the Jan. 28, 4-alarm blaze that consumed her home of 14 years at 22nd and Mission streets, leaving 67 Mission residents displaced and one man dead. “I felt bad, lots of memories stayed there. Everything was burned.”
Though hospitalized for high blood pressure and smoke inhalation, Rodriguez proved lucky. A knock on her door from a neighbor’s husband saved her life.
“My husband saved two people’s lives during the fire,” said Yanira Hernandez, Rodriguez’s neighbor who lived on the third floor for 20 years. “He was taken to the hospital because of the smoke he inhaled and is OK now, [but] we lost everything … in the fire.”
Out of business
In addition to the displaced residents, the building at 2590 Mission St. housed the Mission Market Mall, a hub of Latino-owned small retail and food businesses. In total more than 30 businesses were forced to close or relocate.
Alicia Hasper and Valeria Lannes shared an office on the second floor for their acupuncture and massage health clinic business. On Feb. 5, armed with masks, headlamps and gloves, they were allowed to go up to their workspace and salvage their belongings, which included a massage table, needles, electric stimulators, files, a new heater and dozens of bottled supplements and pills.
“I tried to put things into perspective,” Hasper, an Argentina native, said. “Other areas are very much destroyed. My room is damaged, but not totally ruined.”
Effort to Rebuild
Though the SFFD estimated $4 million worth of damage to the building’s structure, and another $4.5 million for the content and major water damage, the building isn’t totally destroyed.
The landlord, Hawk Lou, hired KCE Matrix, Inc., an engineering consultant based in southern California, to evaluate the building for structural damage.
KCE Matrix submitted its findings Feb. 5, declaring the 1907-built structure unsafe. According to its report the “roof is virtually destroyed and will need to be removed,” and the “interior third floor walls were damaged beyond economic repair and will need to be removed.” The report also stated that the second and first floor walls and ceilings “with some exceptions show minor structural damage; the remainder of this building has non-structural damage as a result of water infiltration from the firefighting effort.”
“The owner and his engineer are essentially taking the steps … to repair the building,” said William Strawn, spokesperson with the department of building inspection. “As I understand it, they have already come in to get a shoring permit, to start to do that work.”
Strawn said the contractor estimates at least 12-18 months before repairs and restoration are completed, but that that could change depending on lab test results regarding asbestos or lead contamination.
Protocol mandates that tenants’ belongings be tested, said Strawn. If they are deemed free of hazardous material, they can be made available to the tenants, if not, they’ll go to a containment site.
The city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development is offering extended workshops to business owners, with information on small disaster, low-interest loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Supervisor calls for action
At the Board of Supervisor’s meeting following the blaze, District 9 Supervisor David Campos vowed to fight for his displaced residents.
“These families were able to afford living in the Mission—one of the highest-priced neighborhoods in the most expensive city in America—because of one reason: rent control,” Campos said at the meeting on Feb. 3.
(As of press time, Campos’ office was still searching for housing for those taking refuge in the shelter. They’re seeking six studios; two 1-bedrooms; seven 2-bedrooms; and four 3-bedrooms units.)
Campos also used the stage to address the dozens of personal-witness accounts of non-working fire alarms, locked fire escapes, and non-working fire extinguishers, calling for building owners to be held “accountable for the safety of our residents.”
Despite the building’s fire panel having current certification at the time of the fire, several residents on the top floor of the 3-story building, as well as business owners on the second floor, say they never heard any alarms.
“I was inside the apartment making dinner, and she heard the firefighters in the building,” said Jorge Gomez, 57, as he looked at Maria Pino, whom he lived with on the second floor. “There was no alarm in the entire building. No fire extinguisher and no sprinklers in the apartment.”
Jaime Renderos, a taxman whose business of seven years was on the second floor, also heard no alarm. It was around 6:40 p.m. when he saw the smoke.
“I didn’t feel panic, but it did surprise me, because there weren’t any flames,” he said. “I only saw smoke.”
Renderos said the fire started on the portion of the building alongside 22nd Street. He was able to escape his office located along Mission Street, not by the locked fire escape, but by the building’s main entrance.
SFFD spokesperson Mindy Talmadge said the building’s certification was good through the night of Jan. 28, but set to expire the following morning.
“All that really means is that on the date that it was certified [Jan. 28, 2014], it was functioning properly,” Talmadge said.
El Tecolote contacted Lou, but he declined to comment per the advice of his insurance attorney.
Investigation underway
An investigation into why the alarms didn’t sound is still in progress, and won’t be complete until the city’s medical examiners determine the official cause of death of Mauricio Orellana, a native of El Salvador and lone casualty of the blaze.
“This is an active investigation,” said Christopher Wirowek, with the city’s medical examiner’s office. “So at this present time, that information is not yet available.”
Campos, along with District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim, is working on legislative options and calling for a hearing regarding fire code enforcement.
“We have to ensure that the one fatality is not a death that happened in vain,” Campos said.
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