Editors' Note: During the last 10 months,
The Providence Journal has committed extraordinary resources to the coverage of The Station fire,
one of the most important events in Rhode Island history. This eight-part series examines the tragedy.
The content is difficult -- too painful, perhaps, for some readers -- but we believe it is essential
to the public understanding of what happened in West Warwick, R.I., on Feb. 20, 2003. For an overview
of the series,
see the column
by The Providence Journal's Executive Editor Joel P. Rawson.
Journal photo / Bob Thayer
THIS CROSS, one of many at The Station site, serves as a memorial to Tom Medeiros.
WEST WARWICK -- You can live your entire life in the smallest state in the country and never pass through its geographical center. You would have no reason.
AFTER A FIRE killed five people in a West Warwick apartment on Dec. 23, 1995, a memorial was left at the charred home: a set of photographs of the kindergarten class at Maisie E. Quinn School, where victim Nicholas Larocque had been a pupil.
The history of the Rhode Island fire code is the history of fire: the code is debated when people die.
TOWN HALL, the seat of political power in West Warwick. A former building inspector, who lasted just 16 months on the job, said this about the town: "It's all about, not what you know, but who you know... I wouldn't play that game."
WEST WARWICK -- As the town slid closer to financial collapse in November 1990, Mayor J. Michael Levesque hunted for budget savings.
MURALS OF rock stars line the exterior
of The Station nightclub in the fall of 2002. The building, which
had undergone several changes throughout its life, had been owned
by Triton for almost 30 years.
In March 2000, two brothers secured a
liquor license from the Town of West Warwick to take over The Station
nightclub on Cowesett Avenue.
West Warwick Fire Marshal Denis P. Larocque examines the ruins of The Station nightclub on Feb. 21, the day after the worst fire in Rhode Island history. Larocque had inspected the club numerous times, but never noted the flammable foam sound insulation that covered its walls.
How did he miss the foam? In the summer of 2000, hundreds of square feet of cheap, highly flammable packing foam were glued to the interior walls of The Station nightclub -- in violation of the state fire code.
MIKE AND SANDY Hoogasian, in their 2001 wedding photo, worked hard, but were never too busy for each other or the people they loved.
Inside the Doors of Perception tattoo parlor, the humming of the electric tattoo needle mixed with the sound of heavy metal. The air was thick with the aroma of spicy men's deodorant, used to slick down the skin, and the scent of medicinal ointment, used to heal it. The gargoyles on the tattoo artist's elbow changed expression with each bend of his arm. And the buzz was on.
SURVIVOR Jason Nadeau held Alison James's
hand as they left the smoke-filled entry hallway of The Station
nightclub on the night of Feb. 20, 2003. Charlene Prudhomme, right,
walked beside them. The pictures with this story were taken from
a WPRI-TV Channel 12 video -- the most complete visual document
of the state's deadliest fire.
The Station had everything a fire needed:
Walls of polyurethane foam. Air to feed the flames. And a band that
opened its act with fireworks.
EXPRESSIONS of grief adorn the fence
around the ruins of The Station a month after the fire. Families
and friends of the victims hope the site will become a memorial.
Forty hours after the fire, the call
went out to dentists. 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.
