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12.22.2003
The Legacy
BY MARK ARSENAULT
Journal Staff Writer
Forty hours after the fire, the call went out to dentists.
We're trying to reach you. We need your records.
Ninety-six bodies from The Station fire. Seven identified. Eighty-nine with no name.
Tattoos? Jewelry? Scars? No detail was too small to identify the living and the dead.
There was a Jane Doe, at the outer edge of life, in Massachusetts General Hospital. She had a chipped tooth.
A missing Johnston woman, Pamela Gruttadauria, had a chipped tooth.
The police took her mother to Boston.
"If that isn't Pamela," said an aunt, "there's no hope."
The woman in Mass General was Pamela. Burned, sedated, on a ventilator.
At the Crowne Plaza hotel in Warwick, families waited for word on the missing. A man walked with a notepad, taking names for a petition for stricter fire laws. "My sister was in there."
Nichols College DJ Jimmy Gahan was identified and confirmed dead on the third day, as was Michael Hoogasian, the Coca-Cola delivery man. Michael's wife, Sandy, was identified on the fourth, the same day as Tommy Medeiros, the former track star from West Warwick, who died with his girlfriend, Lori Durante. Skott Greene, the tattoo artist, was identified a day later.
Linda Suffoletto, a Glocester woman who worked for the state labor department, lived for eight days. She died in Mass General, the 97th person killed.
Kelly L. Vieira, of West Warwick, lived for nine days. She died in Boston Shriners Hospital, the 98th victim. She was a physical-therapist assistant.
Mitch Shubert, a construction worker from Florida, died after 14 days, the 99th.
Pamela Gruttadauria had 30 operations. Surgeons had to remove her hands, sew her eyes shut. She fought infections. She was never fully conscious before her organs failed. She was a hotel food-and-beverage supervisor.
Seventy-three days after the fire started, the killing was done, and the state was left to struggle with the enormity.
One hundred dead. A round, ugly number.
THE STATION site smelled of cut flowers and ashes. There was a chain fence around it, mementos stuffed in the links.
The Town of West Warwick talked tough with The Station. In a letter addressed to Triton Realty Limited Partnership, the property owner, the town's building official declared the burned-out hole a violation of building code:
". . . The rubble and structure that are still standing create a hazard and must be removed. None of the structural material can be buried at the site. A demolition permit must be obtained from this office. The contractor must provide this office with written notice from all utilities stating that their service has been disconnected and free from the property line. Proper erosion control measures must be observed, in place, and inspected by this department prior to demolition. All debris must be removed and clean fill compacted to grade, and be improved by the town engineer.
". . . YOU HAVE UNTIL TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2003 TO MAKE THE NECESSARY REPAIRS TO THIS BUILDING AND PROPERTY THAT WILL BRING IT INTO COMPLIANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THE BUILDING CODE."
The letter signs off:
"Very truly yours, in Building Safety."
GOVERNOR Carcieri ordered a statewide inspection blitz of places of public assembly, to find the firetraps. In a television interview broadcast nationwide, Carcieri urged other states to do the same. "I would say to my fellow governors: Look into this, look into it quickly."
Two days after the fire, club co-owner and Channel 12 reporter Jeffrey A. Derderian, sobbed at a news conference. He denied giving permission for the pyrotechnics that ignited the fire. As a newsman, Derderian had a reputation for demanding answers. Now, he wouldn't take any questions, and has declined requests for interviews.
Six days after the fire, a statewide grand jury convened. Nine months later, it handed up indictments against Derderian, his brother, Station co-owner Michael A. Derderian, and Daniel M. Biechele, the music tour manager blamed for igniting the pyrotechnics that started the fire on Feb. 20.
A part-time Station employee recalled Biechele saying, "I think I'm in big trouble. I think I (expletive) this one up." Biechele's lawyer urged caution about "the accuracy of any statement attributed to people in the frenzied moments after the fire started."
The federal National Institute of Standards and Technology launched an investigation to determine why the building failed so terribly in the crisis.
And a federal grant is paying for a consulting firm to audit the state's response to the fire. The emergency response involved at least 2,000 rescue and medical people. More than 50 fire departments and ambulance companies sent help.
On March 5, a fire struck Town Chef restaurant, in West Warwick. Town Fire Marshal Denis P. Larocque, the inspector who had declared The Station safe, and who had complained of being overworked, was called to investigate.
Firefighters and police gathered in the burnt kitchen. Larocque put his head in his hands, according to one person who saw him.
"I don't need this," he said, according to the observer. "I'm loaded with inspections and I'm all by myself."
ON THE OUTSIDE, little has changed for Larocque, friends say. He coached youth baseball and soccer. He refinanced some of his investment properties, and continued to fix them.
The flip side of living in a close-knit community is that it's impossible to be an anonymous bureaucrat when everyone calls you Rocky, and remembers when you played for the high school football team. And since the fire, people have wondered: How could the inspector have missed the flammable foam on The Station's walls?
At a sports dinner in March, one of Larocque's sons got an award. So did a son of Carlos L. Pimentel Sr., who died in the fire. The irony was unavoidable, though organizers had gone out of their way to avoid mentioning The Station.
"They wanted it to be as normal a night as possible," said Gregory Laboissonniere, a friend of Larocque's. Laboissonniere was the master of ceremonies at the dinner. That night, he approached his old friend.
"I'm getting through it," Larocque told him. "It's been tough."
Larocque is old enough to retire. Hasn't talked about it, friends say.
"I think if he retired now, it would look like he was running away from the situation," said another friend, Jean P. Roch. "He's got pride in what he does. It would be a shame to end his career on that note."
Late on a Friday in August, Larocque visited the Holy Ghost Society's annual festival. It was a spot check, to make sure it was within its crowd limit, said Town Manager Wolfgang Bauer.
Event organizers had hung drapery in violation of the fire code. Larocque stopped the ceremony and demanded the drapes be removed.
Within minutes, Councilman John J. Flynn's phone was ringing. Flynn says angry constituents were complaining about their marshal.
THE GIRL was 7. She had big, full cheeks. Long, shiny hair. Her name was Shayna. She sat quietly in a State House hearing room. She was with her aunt, Renee Walton, testifying before a 17-member legislative commission studying the fire code after The Station disaster.
Shayna's mother, Gina Gauvin, was still in the hospital. She had lost one hand and part of the other.
It was three months and two days after the fire.
Walton testified: "Shayna saw her mom for the first time on Easter Sunday, and her concern was, 'Is mommy's hair going to grow back?' And she asked, 'Will her hand grow back?'
"I said, no, her hand won't grow back. She said, 'Well, can mommy still tickle me and can mommy hug me?' Those were her concerns."
Spectators were sniffling throughout the room.
"We just want Gina to come home," Walton said. "The other day when I was up there, [Gina] started saying she doesn't know what she's going to do when she gets home. And she went to cry. And she didn't have a hand to wipe her tears."
Members of the commission shuddered and hid their eyes.
Walton continued, "And I'm sure if you ask one of the owners of the club now if they could go back three months and three days, would they have sprinklers in their building? I'm sure they would say yes."
THE SPECIAL fire safety commission, headed by Sen. John Celona, D-North Providence, and Rep. Peter Ginaitt, D-Warwick, responded on June 5 with a 60-page report recommending the most radical update to fire laws since the first statewide code was approved in the 1960s:
Nightclubs that held more than 150 people would need sprinklers.
The grandfather clause, which had exempted older buildings from modern fire codes, would be abolished, in favor of the National Fire Protection Association's standards for existing buildings. They would require more "active protection," such as fire alarms, in many more buildings.
Seven days after the report came out, legislation based on the recommendations came before the Senate Corporations Committee for a hearing.
The family of Tommy Medeiros gathered at the State House, not to speak, but to be seen.
Many people who supported the new codes argued they must be passed so the 100 lives lost in The Station fire would not be in vain.
Tommy's niece, Andrea Silva, saw it a little differently. She wanted the new codes so no other family would go through what her family had, and so the people who died would be remembered.
She persuaded Tommy's family to come to the hearing. At first, nobody wanted to. The lawmakers need to see us, Silva insisted. They had seen Tommy's snapshot in the paper and on TV. She wanted them to see a living reminder of what had been lost.
We are the family behind the face.
The legislation passed, unanimously, in both houses of the General Assembly. Governor Carcieri signed "The Comprehensive Fire Safety Act of 2003" on July 7 at a ceremony on the State House steps.
Carcieri was too choked up to mention the 100 white roses, one for each person who died, arranged in a bouquet at the foot of the podium. After the ceremony, the governor's wife, Suzanne, spun one of the roses in her fingers.
"It represents something that's so very perishable, like our lives," she said. "Beautiful, but it doesn't go on forever."
THE LAWSUITS started 12 days after the disaster. Suits blame the Derderian brothers, who had soundproofed their club with flammable packing foam, and the Johnston company that sold them the foam. They blame Denis Larocque for not noting the foam, and also his employer, the Town of West Warwick. They blame the rock band Great White, which used the pyrotechnics that lit the foam.
Some suits name state Fire Marshal Irving J. Owens as a defendant. Owens's nephew, Christopher Nowicki, 30, of East Greenwich, had attended the Great White concert, and was missing in the hours after the fire. He was in Rhode Island Hospital -- burned.
A Providence Journal investigation concluded that at least 432 people were in The Station at the time of the fire, which would put the building over its legal capacity.
Town Hall says that West Warwick is not to blame. All five council members still support the administration and Larocque. In July, there was a hard-fought race for a vacant seat. Republicans, working to win in a Democratic ward, campaigned against "business as usual."
A letter signed and distributed by Republican candidate Jeanne M. Kostyla went to voters. One paragraph read:
"I was devastated to learn that the conditions in the Station Night Club existed when the building was inspected . . . Where are our inspectors? . . . What tragedy is next? Which renter is waiting to become a victim like the five that died in a fire a few years ago in Phenix because of slipshod inspections and code enforcement?"
The family that perished in the 1995 fire in Phenix were cousins of Fire Marshal Larocque.
After she lost the election, Kostyla claimed that she had asked for that paragraph to be deleted from the draft that she had approved.
"Our fire department and police officers, as well as our department heads, are second to none," she wrote in an apology.
Town Manager Wolfgang Bauer spoke to Larocque not long after the fire. He says Larocque told him that he stood by his inspections of The Station.
"He doesn't think he missed much," Bauer said.
MUCH OF West Warwick's official reaction to the fire has taken place in private, in huddles with lawyers preparing a defense against wrongful-death suits.
Council President Jeanne-Marie DiMasi warned taxpayers in May that the town could face huge tax increases if found liable. Ten years ago, West Warwick underwent a state takeover because of mounting debt. It could happen again, town officials acknowledge.
Some West Warwick firefighters continue to be troubled with what they saw that cold February night. Two remain out of work, 10 months after the fire. Neither responded to a request for an interview.
Joseph J. Rodio, a lawyer for the firefighters' union, said firefighters have asked themselves how to memorialize the event. Does the equipment used that night belong on a mantel somewhere? Or in the trash, where it would no longer rekindle painful memories?
Following up on a decision it had made shortly before the fire, the West Warwick Town Council appointed an assistant inspector for Larocque. But Larocque and Bauer complained that until that assistant was fully trained, he could do little to reduce the workload.
"Now, on top of these [other] duties, I have to train [the new inspector]," Larocque said in a brief telephone interview in July.
This fall, the town brought a third inspector into the fire marshal's office -- tripling the staff from before the fire.
The state fire marshal's office has received the money to add six positions. Those inspectors and investigators have not been hired, Owens said last week. He predicted the hires would be made "within days."
Just as before the fire, most Rhode Island fire inspections are done by local fire departments. The new fire code, taking effect in February, will give them more authority to demand changes. It will also demand more work.
A recent check of large fire departments -- including Providence, East Providence, Cranston, Warwick and Newport -- show that none have added any fire inspectors.
Fire chiefs say they want more, but that local governments have other priorities. "I didn't ask for more, given the city's financial condition," said Cranston's chief, Robert Warren.
Other than in West Warwick, Kent County chiefs say they are being asked to enforce a new code with the same resources they had a year ago.
The case of East Greenwich's one fire inspector, Susan Hawksley, is emblematic, says Chief Thomas J. Rowan. "Being a one-person division, she's pretty much maxed out to her limit, even before the new codes came in," he said.
Once the new fire code takes effect, he said, "She's going to be swamped. To be honest with you, we don't know how we're going to handle that."
IN WEST WARWICK, as the attention paid to inspections has increased, so have the complaints. This fall, someone stapled unsigned messages to telephone poles in Arctic, the town's central business district:
West Warwick Fire Department and building inspectors are badgering and penalizing the rest of us . . . hiding their responsibilities before, during, and after The Fire.
'We,' the residences, business people, and consumers are not responsible nor should we be antagonized by the 'New Mafia,' i.e. the Fire Department and building inspectors . . .
. . . We the business people, homeowners, and consumers, are not the wrongdoers. We should not pay, financially or otherwise, for their negligence and egos. Do not burden us with intimidation and misdirection from your mistakes. We are fed up.
THE NIGHT of the fire, Mary Jo Carolan, a director of Triton Realty, the owner of The Station property, "appeared at the scene of the fire not knowing how bad it was, and was there to witness so much of the horror. She was emotionally devastated," said Triton's lawyer, Daniel P. McKiernan.
Carolan had, a year earlier, become president of Triton Realty, Inc., the general-partner arm of Triton Realty Limited Partnership. Her father, Raymond J. Villanova, Triton's founder, had become the vice president. It fell to Carolan to give a detailed statement on behalf of Triton to West Warwick police.
She also began the post-fire changes to Triton's corporate structure.
On Feb. 27, a week after the fire, Triton Realty Inc.'s 2003 annual report was filed. It no longer listed Raymond J. Villanova as an officer.
In March, a quit-claim deed, filed in Lincoln Town Hall, gave Villanova's wife sole ownership of their house, which was last assessed at $715,400.
On June 19, Triton conveyed its strip mall in Framingham, Mass., for $1 to a newly created corporation: Framingham 150 FR Realty Limited Partnership.
On June 20, Triton conveyed its land and commercial building in North Attleboro for $1 to a new corporation: North Attleboro 430 Limited Partnership.
On the same day, Triton conveyed its Bugaboo Creek property in Seekonk, Mass., for $1 to a new corporation: Seekonk-226 Limited Partnership.
McKiernan, Triton's lawyer, said Triton is not trying to hide assets.
He said the company is taking care of organization, a wise corporate restructuring it should have done long ago. Triton's assets, he said, "are still there."
"This is by no means . . . a comment on our view of our responsibilities."
A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Providence, alleges that Triton knew or should have known that The Station, "contained defects in construction," and that Triton, "failed to comply with reasonable safety standards."
McKiernan responded that West Warwick set the occupancy limits for The Station, West Warwick inspected the building, and that the Derderians hung the flammable foam. Triton, he said, "had no reason to believe anything like (the foam) existed." And without the foam to rapidly spread the fire, he believes the layout of The Station would have been suitable to allow people to escape.
Triton filed its own lawsuit against the Derderians, their business entity, and five insurance companies that provided coverage to both the Derderians and Triton. McKiernan said he was forced to act, because the insurers had so far refused to provide unconditional coverage to Triton for claims stemming from the fire. Triton anticipates more lawsuits, he said.
"Even though Triton was in compliance with the law, there appears to be tremendous pressure to name us as a defendant . . .," he said.
SIX MONTHS after their pyrotechnics ignited the fourth-deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history, Great White was back on stage, with a new guitarist playing for Ty Longley, who died in The Station.
The band announced a 41-city concert series to benefit The Station Family Fund, a nonprofit organized to aid the fire's victims.
Local reaction to the concerts was mixed. "Some people are not going to understand it, they're not going to agree with it," said Great White singer Jack Russell. "But it's the only thing we can do to help [the victims] put food on their tables."
Russell testified before the grand jury investigating the fire, after receiving a promise from Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch that his testimony would not be used against him. Two other members of the band -- Eric Powers and Dave Filice -- and Biechele, the band's tour manger, testified under similar agreements.
Two months into the tour, on a day Great White was playing in Oregon, Diane Mattera, of Warwick, tore out the memorial crosses at The Station site that had been dedicated to Ty Longley, and threw them into the woods.
Mattera lost her daughter, Tammy Mattera-Housa, in the fire.
She explained: "I feel sorry for [Longley] that he died, but the only thing is he doesn't belong there."
A new cross for Longley, made of steel, was sunk at the site into 300 pounds of cement.
CHANNEL 12 kept reporter Jeff Derderian, co-owner of The Station, as an employee for four months after the fire -- though he didn't do any more stories for them. Derderian resigned on June 30, noting in a letter, ". . . I recognize that being part of the Channel 12 team is not realistic at this point in time."
Three weeks later, after 153 days in Mass General, Joseph Kinan, 34, of Canton, Mass., was released, to begin rehabilitation. He was the last Station survivor to be discharged. He had more than 30 surgeries. Lost his fingers, part of his nose and ears.
His lawyer said Kinan's medical bills may top $4 million.
Caring for the people burned in The Station pushed the long-range cost estimates of the disaster above $100 million.
Jeffrey Derderian's lawyer, Jeffrey B. Pine, says Derderian is working in sales and marketing for a small Rhode Island company. He didn't want to name the firm, but says it is not in the media business.
Last March, Michael Derderian renewed his Rhode Island license to sell insurance.
The Derderians have appealed a $1 million fine for not covering Station employees with mandatory workers compensation insurance. The fine, levied in April, is the largest of its type in state history.
Jeffrey Derderian, who was overcome by emotion at his press conference after the fire, was stoic at the arraignments on Dec. 9. Each of the three men pleaded not guilty to 200 charges of manslaughter -- two charges for each death.
After learning of the indictments, many survivors, and the families of people who perished, loudly wondered: What about the inspectors? What about the band? Why weren't they charged?
ANDREA SILVA hates having to talk about her uncle, Tommy Medeiros. Still so painful. But she has resolved to do it. "People are going to know about him," she says, "and he will not be forgotten."
Silva is not fond of visiting The Station site, the patch of sand on Cowesett Avenue dotted with crude wooden crosses, where some survivors and relatives of those who perished gather on the 20th of every month to remember.
Silva doesn't connect with Tommy at the place he died. She remembers him best when she is in the company of people who knew him.
It seems clear that the site will eventually become a memorial.
The Station Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit group, formed to make sure the dead would be remembered there, forever. They don't want a donut shop on top of The Station's ashes.
Last month, another group led by House Speaker William J. Murphy began taking steps to place the land in a newly formed nonprofit corporation to preserve it for a memorial.
PAULA McLAUGHLIN thinks most often about her brother, Mike Hoogasian and his wife, Sandy, in the mornings.
"Oh my God, this silence," she says, "it's so strong, it would knock you over."
In her mind, she calls to them.
You're not even in this world anymore.
On the Chepachet farm that she shares with her husband and daughter, a bitter wind pulls at her dark curls. She tilts her face down into her brocade scarf. Paula is 38, with classic features, like Mike. She has dark eyes, from her Armenian heritage. Her eyes look tired, spilling with tears. Her last words with Mike were over the phone, shortly before the Great White concert.
She stood down the hill from the main house, near her art studio, a miniature house where she paints and makes jewelry. It's too hard now to work in the studio. She thinks about how Mike spent all day helping her move into it, how she loved having him around.
Jay McLaughlin, her husband, a Pawtucket firefighter, on the other hand, has found the farm his refuge since Feb. 20, when he spent all night at The Station fire as a responder. He has ripped the deck off the house. Planted an apple orchard.
Paula says, "He won't talk about anything. He fights back the tears and moves on. This is how he copes.
"He is trying to hold our family together. I'm trying, I'm trying to get through this . . . it's a huge, huge strain because our lives are not the same, and they never will be again."
Paula is organizing a photography exhibit of the tattoos that people have gotten in memory of those who died in the fire. Ironic. She used to hate tattoos. Didn't want Mike to tell her when he got a new one.
She hired a photographer and she wants to see every tattoo inspired by the fire. She knows of 30. Sandy's brothers got tattoos of crosses. Two of Mike's friends are inked with the citation of Mike's favorite Bible quote:
And with His stripes we are healed.
Paula lay on her stomach as the tattoo needle bore into her. She screamed the whole time. But now the remembrance on her skin is permanent:
Sandy and Mike, forever.
Next to Paula's studio, Jay cleared stumps and rocks and built gravel paths with a butterfly-shaped stepping stone at the center. It will be a peace garden in remembrance of Mike and Sandy. He put down mulch. Planted daffodils and tulips, to bloom next year. He will add two weeping cherry trees, the kind Mike and Sandy had in their own yard.
Under a trellis, Jay placed a wooden bench. An empty seat for Mike and Sandy. "This bench says it all," Paula says. "This is how I feel, a huge empty void."
Yet, she smiles when she speaks about her plans.
She will paint a mural on the side of the studio. Will place a wrought iron fence around the peace garden.
She will invite new friends to stroll her land. She met the sisters of Tommy Medeiros at a Station support group, and now they are close.
"We believe Tommy and Mike would have been friends," she said. "And that they are together, that they are all together."
With staff reports from Jennifer Levitz, Zachary R. Mider, Edward Fitzpatrick and W. Zachary Malinowski.
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