Update 8:00 p.m. Saturday: Many families are awaiting word on loved ones who might have attended the dance party at the Oakland warehouse where a fire broke out overnight Friday, killing at least nine people.
One of the parents waiting is Kim Gregory, mother of Michaela Gregory, a 20-year-old student at San Francisco State University. Michaela went with her boyfriend, Alex Vega, to the party. Kim said after learning about the fire that she immediately came to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, where other families of the missing were gathered.
Emergency Contacts for People Seeking Loved Ones
Call: (510) 382-3000
Assistance Center: 2425 E. 12th Street, Oakland
– Facebook Safety Check
– List of Missing (Facebook)
– Fire Relief Fund for Victims
“We were too shaken up, My brother had to drive us over here,” said Gregory, of South San Francisco. “We’re just holding on trying to get all the information we can. We’re not getting very much so we’re just waiting here as long as we can.”
Gregory said her daughter was an honor roll student studying child development for children with special needs.
“She’s very intelligent,” she said. “She carries her heart on her shoulder.”
Gregory said she is holding out hope that rescuers say “they found some badly burned alive people somewhere in a hospital – where I can go see her and bring her home.”
GoldenStateWarriors on Twitter
A moment of silence for the victims of the #OaklandFire.
Update 7:00 p.m. Saturday: We continue to get more updates about the deadly fire that struck the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland overnight Friday.
Nine bodies have been recovered from the scene and at least two dozen people remain unaccounted for, Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly said.
“We still have a lot of families that are in that unknown stage,” he said at a press conference. “They are grieving and remain at our family assistance center.”
Recovery efforts will continue overnight, Kelly said, noting it is expected to take 48 hours, at a minimum. A crane, excavators, dumpster trucks and flood lights will be used.
“We know there are bodies that are in there that we can’t get to, that have been seen but not recovered,” he said. The work has to move slowly “because when we’re pulling debris we want to make sure that there are not victims trapped in that debris.”
The building has engineering problems and structural issues that have made the recovery and identification process more difficult – challenges that will get tougher in the dark, Kelly said.
“There are a lot of areas that we cannot get to, that we need to cut away parts of the building and use excavation techniques” on, he said. “That is more difficult at night because you can’t see things you would normally see in the day.”
Authorities have located several people who were believed to have been missing but still don’t have a precise number of victims.
“We don’t even know how far into the process that we are,” Kelly said.
Update 5:00 pm Saturday: We have more information about the deadly blaze at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland overnight Friday.
Four bodies have been removed from the scene, said
Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly. Authorities are taking fingerprint in hopes that it will help to identify the victims.
And, there remain “at least a couple dozen people that we need to figure out their whereabouts.”
The work is slow going, Kelly said, noting that it’s “very bad wreckage,” “very twisted debris.”
“Floors have collapsed on top of floors. The roof has collapsed,” he said at a press conference. “There are more victims, we would imagine under that wreckage.”
Authorities may bring in cadaver dogs or robot technologies to help them get into the “places and crevices we can’t get in.”
Families and friends gathered at the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in Oakland to await word about their loved ones.
Dozens of people walked in and out of the office Saturday afternoon, many crying, consoling each other, or keeping their eyes focused on the sidewalk. Families have gotten little information since firefighters have had so much difficulty sifting through the wreckage.
Captain Purnell Hall, a pastor with the Salvation Army, delivered hot chicken, couscous, and salad to the office, enough for 50 people for lunch.
“Everyone’s emotional right now,” he said of the families and friends inside. “I hope that, in time, they can get the answers they need. I just wanted to come down and love on them right now.”
Farida Jhabvala on Twitter
Memorial by #oaklandfire as firefighters get gear
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‘In union there is strength’ fortune cookie quote at flower memorial by #oaklandfire
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Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the #OaklandFire. We are Oakland. Donate to help. https://t.co/dtVUflIQNp
Update 3:00 p.m. Saturday: We continue to learn more information about the fire that took place at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland on Friday night in what Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf described as “a terrible tragedy.”
“It is a very complicated and devastating scene,” Schaaf said, asking for the public’s patience while officials undertake a “very thorough and methodical investigation to discern what in fact happened.”
“It’s going to take us time.”
Prior to speaking with reporters, Schaaf met with victims’ families who continue to wait for word about their loved ones.
“It was painful to tell them that it will be a considerable amount of time before we can give them the information that they deserve,” Schaaf said.
Recovery and identification efforts continue to be delayed because of structural instabilities, and as of midday Saturday, only one body had been removed from the building.
Mark Hoffmann, Operations Chief for Oakland Fire Department, said the scene continues to be “too lively” and that firefighters backed out of the structure after seeing the walls move. Firefighters planned to reenter the building after securing unstable walls.
Hoffmann said that when firefighters initially arrived on the scene, they were able to enter the building and got about twenty yards in with handlines.
“We knew there were people in there and we were trying to get them out,” he said. “It was just a labyrinth of little areas.”
He said there appeared to be a single staircase, apparently constructed out of wood. When firefighters arrived, that staircase was on fire and “not viable to be used to access the second floor.” There was also no evidence of sprinklers and the building reportedly had two exits, according to Hoffmann.
Initial reports show that the roof collapsed onto the second floor and “in many areas, the second floor collapsed onto the first floor, further complicating our efforts to enter the building,” Hoffmann said.
Darin Ranelletti, Director of Planning and Building for the City of Oakland, said, “the last designated use of the building was as a warehouse.” The city had received reports that people were living there but officials were still investigating and trying to confirm that.
After receiving complaints of blight and unpermitted construction on the property, an investigation was opened on November 13. On November 17, the city attempted to send an investigator to the building, but were unable to enter the premises, Ranelletti said.
Ranelletti added that a city-issued permit would have been required to throw a party at the address and that none had been issued for Friday night.
The warehouse is owned by Chor Ng and is owned through the Chor N S Ng trust. Chor Ng has owned the building since 1997, and is listed as owner of a total of nine buildings in Oakland, including two others beside 1305 on the same block: 1315 35th Avenue, and 3073 International Boulevard.
The LA Times contacted Ng’s daughter, Eva, who said the warehouse was leased as studio space for an art collective and not used as a dwelling.
More from The Times:
“Nobody lived there,” she told The Times, adding: “It was an art collective.”
She said she had asked her leaseholders about the issue and been reassured nobody lived in the building. “They confirmed multiple times. They said sometimes some people worked through the night but that is all,” she said.
The second floor had two exits, both reached by wooden stairs, she said, adding she believes it also had smoke detectors. She was not familiar with comments by fire officials that the stairs consisted of stacked packing crates.
Ng said her mother felt terrible about the tragedy.
Update 1:30 p.m. Saturday: Families of missing people continue to wait for word of loved ones as firefighters wait to enter the building.
Daniel Vega, 36, was on break at work in Pittsburg when he heard about the fire on TV. His younger brother Alex, 22, loves going to raves and told their family he was going to a rave in Oakland last night with his girlfriend. Vega says her car is still parked at San Bruno BART station, and his brother hasn’t been answering his phone.
“He would never not respond,” Vega said.
Vega doesn’t know if his brother was at the party last night. He came to the Alameda County Sheriff Office in Oakland, but was frustrated that he couldn’t get any information.
“I want to go over there,” Vega said, of the site of the fire. “Give me some gloves. I got work shoes. I’m ready. Let me find my brother.”
Inside the building, Vega said there were about 30 family members of people who are missing. He said the mood was “very somber.”
“People are crying everywhere,” he said.
The American Red Cross and Salvation Army are providing food to families as they wait for news of their loved ones. Social workers and chaplains are also on hand, available to talk.
Accounts of the fire from people at the building last night have appeared online.
Seung Y. Lee on Twitter
hi, I was at #oaklandfire last night. I’m okay. Praying for those who have passed away and missing.
Seung Y. Lee on Twitter
Felt like the social hub was on second floor with people dancing and standing. I say 60-70 ppl total in building when I left. #oaklandfire
Seung Y. Lee on Twitter
The staircase to second floor was haphardazous. All wood. Coming down, I twisted my bum ankle. I was complaiing about stairs/ankle as I left
A relief fund for victims has been started. Over $21,000 has been raised so far, from over 500 donors.
Update 12:15 p.m. Saturday: Firefighters continue to have difficulty accessing the inside of the building and are currently in the beginning stages of the “recovery and identification process,” according to Sgt. Ray Kelly.
“It’s a task just to get through the front door because of all the wreckage and debris,” Kelly said at a noon press conference Saturday.
Kelly added that there will be an arson investigation, but there is currently no reason to suspect arson and the building is not currently been deemed a crime scene.
“This is just a tragedy and there are no easy answers right now.”
Kelly also provided some information about the people who were in the building last night. “Some of these folks are not from the United States, they are visitors. A lot of the victims are young people, people in their twenties to thirties. They have families outside of the area who we are talking to.”
“We have nine confirmed victims. We believe there are more victims, but we’re not going to get into the numbers game at this point.”
Kelly stated that not many victims were transported to area hospitals. “People either made it out or didn’t make it out.”
“There are a lot of questions that are being asked: what is the history of the building?, what was the occupancy of the building? Any code violations?” OPD spokeswoman Johnna Watson said. “All of those questions about permits, calls to the location, we’ve already started the investigation and are looking into it.”
The building at 1305 31st Avenue in East Oakland was subject to two recent building code enforcement complaints, according to city Planning and Building Department records available online.
The department received a housing habitability complaint on Nov. 14 alleging illegal interior construction. A building inspector was unable to verify the complaint on Nov. 17.
On Nov. 13, the department received a complaint about “a ton of garbage piling up on the property” and alleging that “some of [the] trash was hazardous.”
“The yard became a trash collection site and the main building was remodel (sic) for residential,” the complaint says.
An inspector verified the complaint on Nov. 17 and notice of violation was sent on Nov. 21, according to online records.
Update 10:55 a.m. Saturday: A death toll of nine is expected to rise in the coming hours and days as firefighters sift through the debris of an East Oakland fire that started during a warehouse party Friday night.
“This is a very rough day for the City of Oakland,” Alameda County Sheriff spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said during a Saturday morning press conference. “This is not easy. This hits very close to home for a lot of us.”
Kelly said he didn’t want to speculate on how many were killed in the fire that started around 11:30 p.m. Friday inside the building known as the “Ghost Ship” at 1305 31st Avenue.
“We’re prepared to deal with several dozen fatalities as a result of this fire,” he said. “We can confirm this morning nine deceased. We expect that number to go up when we’re able to go inside.”
Firefighters extinguished the bulk of the blaze by daybreak Saturday morning, but were still fighting hot spots as of just after 10 a.m. The building’s roof collapsed onto its second floor, Kelly said.
“We have to go in there piece by piece and move wood and timbers and debris,” he said.
Judy Campbell on Twitter
@kqednews. Alameda County Sgt Ray Kelly says prepared for dozens of fatalities. #oaklandfire
Approximately 25 people were missing Saturday morning, but that number could include some already confirmed dead, Kelly said.
“We’re trying to make sense of all that chaos,” he said, urging people with information about those attending the event featuring musician Golden Donna’s 100% Silk West Coast tour to contact officials at (510) 382-3000. An assistance center for those seeking loved ones in person has also been established at 2425 E. 12th Street in Oakland.
Taylor Selby was among those searching for friends Saturday morning who may have been at the event. She told KQED’s Sukey Lewis that some people in her group talked about going to the “Ghost Ship” party Friday night, and that’s the last she heard from them.
“This is a really big shock,” she said.
Though Selby wasn’t at the party Friday night, she said she’s been in the building known for its chaotic interior before.
“It looked like it was a portal to a different dimension,” she said. “There were artifacts from all over the world … It kind of felt like a flea market.”
At this point, the cause of the fire is unknown, as is whether the building’s design contributed to casualties.
“We’re going to need to talk to people who were in there and may have seen things,” Sgt. Kelly said, “but right now we’re not there yet.”
Officials are plan to give hourly updates throughout the day Saturday.
Update 9:17 a.m. Saturday:
Family and friends of people who attended a warehouse party in East Oakland Friday night are searching for unaccounted loved ones in the aftermath of a three-alarm fire that killed at least nine.
Coroners were preparing for more fatalities Saturday.
Fire officials said that about 50 people were inside the building known as the “Ghost Ship” at 1305 31st Avenue when the fire started at about 11:30 p.m. Friday. The building had no sprinklers.
Oakland Firefighters on Twitter
31st Ave- #oakland @KTVU @kron4news @CBSSF @abc7newsbayarea @allaboutgeorge https://t.co/OecGgnuF6s
“It was too hot, too much smoke, I had to get out of there,” Bob Mule, a photographer and artist who lives at the building and suffered minor burns, told the East Bay Times. “I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke. I couldn’t get the fire extinguisher to work.”
People used a Facebook page Saturday to post and seek information on family and friends who may have been in the building.
Oakland police urged those concerned about missing people to call the Alameda County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau at 510-382-3000.
Original Post 8:19 a.m. Saturday:
Associated Press
OAKLAND, Calif. — Fire officials say at least nine people died in a blaze that broke out during a party in a warehouse late Friday night in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloche-Reed says at least another 13 people are unaccounted for as of Saturday morning.
Deloche-Reed says the fire department still must do a thorough search of the building.
The fire started about 11:30 p.m. Friday. It tore through the building during an event featuring musician Golden Donna’s 100% Silk West Coast tour, the East Bay Times reports.
Authorities told KTVU-TV about 50 people were in the building, which houses a group of artists and their studios.
People concerned about loved ones missing in the fire should contact the Alameda County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau 510-382-3000, the East Bay Times reported.