Warehouse fire victims texted goodbyes

As more people seek refuge in the warehouses amid the housing shortage, the harder it gets to keep everything up to code, Dunn said. “This was an accident waiting to happen”.

The warehouse was the site of an artists’ collective known as The Ghost Ship, and numerous victims were either associated with the group or with the local creative community; musicians, tech professionals, students and free spirits.

Investigators from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives identified an “area of interest” on the ground floor that was still out of reach, according to Sergeant Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

He said people who wish to donate to the relief effort can do so on a fundraising page set up by the city and the Red Cross to for the victims’ families.

Michael Allison recalled Almena and Micah overcome with laughter once when they told of a fire-breather accidentally setting himself on fire at one of their many parties at the building, which was widely known as the Ghost Ship.

Derick Ion Almena and his partner, Micah Allison, ran the building’s arts colony – the Satya Yuga collective.

In the past, Almena was arrested for unknown charges in Los Angeles and and took a plea deal in a case involving a misdemeanor charge of accepting stolen property in January 2015 for which he is still on probation. The terms of his probation allowed authorities to enter his home without a warrant, records show.

Child welfare authorities refused to comment on the family, citing privacy laws. “My heartfelt condolences to the family and friends who have suffered the loss of loved ones”.

Almena told San Jose television station KNTV he didn’t know the event was taking place, and he wasn’t at the warehouse Friday night because he and his wife had made a decision to stay at a hotel because he was exhausted and their children had school. All of them survived. When Today show cohosts Matt Lauer and Tamron Hall asked whether he was profiting off the warehouse’s residents, Almena apologized for the deadly incident.

“Many of the people that live in these spaces are concerned about a crackdown from the city because of this one incident”, said Darin Marshall, who lives in a warehouse nearby.

“It’s heartbreaking, it’s bad”, Ghassan’s friend Richardine Bartee told the Jersey Journal earlier this week, after he had been identified as one of the many missing after the fire.

“We are friends, employers, supporters of many who have been affected by this tragedy- we are holding safe space for all, the foundation wrote on their website”. City officials would not give further details.

City officials didn’t sign off on a special permit for the event, Ranelletti said. Those whose identities were yet to be released included a 17-year-old and the son of a sheriff’s deputy, authorities said. I’d rather let them tear at my flesh than answer these ridiculous questions. “It’s been going on for years”, he said.

Under state and city law, commercial buildings must receive annual fire inspections.

By Monday afternoon, 75 percent of the debris had been removed, officials said. “We put our children to bed there every night”, he said.

“It’s a systematic underinvestment in the fire department and a roll of the dice, hoping they’ll get away with it”, he said.

On Monday, Almena said the couple was sorry for all those who lost loved ones in the fire.

Danielle Boudreaux, who described herself as a former friend of Almena’s, said she broke with him more than a year ago over her concerns about the well-being of his children in a place where they were surrounded by drugs and filth.