WEST WARWICK -- Lawyers and investigators yesterday combed the ruins of The Station nightclub for evidence to be used in lawsuits brought by victims of the Feb. 20 fire that has claimed 99 lives.
Many of those who poked through the charred remains confessed they had not expected much to be left more than a month after the blaze.
"It's always difficult to come back to a crime scene after it's been gone over by numerous investigators from numerous agencies," said lawyer Michael Malchik.
But Malchik and his colleagues did not find what they had expected.
"We were pleased to see there was still evidence available despite the weather, despite the number of people who have been here before us," said lawyer Robert Reardon. "What struck me when I walked out on the site was the sheer amount of evidence. Today is not going to be anywhere near sufficient time to analyze this property, there's so much evidence."
Several of the lawyers and investigators -- for potential plaintiffs and potential defendants in Station fire lawsuits -- said they would ask Superior Court Judge Alice B. Gibney for more time to examine the site. Gibney has scheduled a hearing for 9:30 a.m. tomorrow to consider such requests.
"It looks like there's going to be a great deal of work for the experts," said lawyer Max Wistow. "We're going to have to have a team of five or six experts in there for two to three weeks."
Gibney, who was on the site yesterday to oversee access, told reporters she is not inclined to hurry the process. "It's a work in progress," said the judge. "Speed is not an issue."
West Warwick officials have declared the site unsafe and want the debris bulldozed to eliminate the danger.
That means now is the only opportunity to gather evidence from the site for parties in what is expected to be a flood of civil litigation. Criminal investigators have already gone over the site and collected evidence for criminal prosecutions.
In all, 37 lawyers and 27 investigators signed in to examine the site yesterday. While they had unfettered access to most of the area around the ruins of the building, only a few at a time were allowed onto the floor of what had been the nightclub. That left lawyers and investigators -- in an eerie echo of the once-popular nightspot -- briefly standing in line on the stairs that had led to The Station's front door.
What they found was a perplexing array of objects giving testimony to the fickle nature of fire:
Steel girders were bent and contorted like the twist tie on a plastic bag. A plastic bottle of strawberry daiquiri mix survived unscathed.
Several billiard balls in a basket were cracked and charred from the heat, almost as if they exploded. Others looked ready to play.
Liquor bottles had melted in the grotesque form of some Salvador Dali painting. Others looked ready for the top shelf.
But the objects of most interest to the lawyers and investigators were more mundane. Things such as remnants of foam, carpet and wire, according to lawyer Mark Decof.
Decof and Wistow are part of a team of lawyers representing the estates of a man who died in the fire, Louis S. Alves, of Lincoln. The team also represents Robert Rager, who was hospitalized after the fire.
It can be hard to say what object will prove useful, said Malchik. "You're really not sure what you're looking for. You're hoping that something out of the ordinary will jump out at you."
Malchik, a retired major crimes detective for the Connecticut State Police, is now a lawyer and part of the team representing the estate of Sarah Telgarsky, of Plainfield, Conn., who died in the fire.
Investigators were allowed to look at the site yesterday -- including taking measurements, photographs and videos -- but not touch. Every object they saw had to remain in place.
Malchik and other lawyers said they plan to ask Gibney for permission to move debris around so they can see what lies hidden beneath and to remove samples from the site for laboratory testing.
Reardon said he already has reviewed expert studies of what the fire must have been like. He said the temperature reached 400 degrees in 30 to 60 seconds and eventually reached 1,000 degrees inside the club.
Reardon represents the estates of three from Connecticut who died, Melvin Gerfin, of Groton; and Samuel Miceli and Jude Henault, both of Lisbon.
Said Reardon: "It's going to take a long time to process the material on this site."
