Deadly Texas fire AT THE Wedgwood Senior Apartments
high-rise kills 7 SENIOR CITIZENS; 17 remain hospitalized
December 29th, 2014 by Associated Press in Breaking News
Read Time: 2 mins.
Texas is in the top three states in terms of fire fatalities. The other top two states are California and Pennsylvania.
Firefighters and emergency units respond to a fire at
the Wedgwood Senior Apartments, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2014, in San Antonio, Texas.
Photo by Associated Press/Times Free Press.
CASTLE HILLS, Texas -- More than a dozen people remained
hospitalized Monday following a fire that killed five residents of a
senior-living apartment building near San Antonio, a city official said.
Castle Hills City Manager Diane Pfeil said 17 residents
were in hospitals, including one in serious condition.
Meanwhile, officials were "working feverishly"
to account for about 80 residents of the Wedgwood Apartments, she said.
Authorities believed those people found refuge with family or had left for the
holidays before the Sunday morning fire and were confident no other victims
were in the 11-floor building.
"It's been scrubbed," Pfeil said. "It
could be as simple as visiting some loved ones. A few of these people have
cars. They could have driven off. They could have been with a friend.
"There's any number of reasons why these people are
unaccounted for."
Two police detectives retrieved residents' emergency
contact information from the building management and were making calls.
"That's one of our top priorities," Pfeil
said.
The building is managed by Los Angeles-based Entrada
Management Services. A phone call to the office of Reuben Berman, identified as
a founder and principal of Entrada Partners on the company's website, was not
immediately returned to The Associated Press on Monday.
Two of those killed were identified as Jose Gonzales,
73, and Karen Rae Betz, 74, according to the Bexar County Medical Examiner's
Office. Names of the three other people who died were being withheld until
their relatives could be notified.
A total of 150 firefighters from San Antonio and six
other fire departments responded to the blaze, which was reported shortly after
6 a.m. Sunday.
State and county officials worked Monday to determine a
cause for the fire, which appeared to have started on the third floor. Pfeil
said the last fire inspection took place in September and the building had no
history of fires.
No sprinkler system was installed when the structure was
built in 1965, according to Pfeil. Rules now require such sprinklers but the
building, home to about 350 people, was grandfathered, allowing it to keep
operating without them.
"We're going to look at that now in light of the
fact we've had fatalities," Pfeil said.
Many of those evacuated were taken by city buses to a
high school, and some family members waited Sunday at a makeshift shelter in
the cafeteria for word of their loved ones.
Displaced residents eventually were housed in two
hotels. Firefighters went room to room in the evacuated building to retrieve
medications for many of them. Others were able to get their medications Monday
at City Hall.
"This was an elderly population and medicine is
very important to them," the city manager said.
Some people left the building without their dentures and
prosthetic limbs. Pfeil said the Red Cross was working with authorities to
hopefully get those essentials Tuesday and deliver them to the hotels.
Castle Hills, one of several enclaves of San Antonio,
has about 4,200 residents.