Subject: Report of Windermere Protest
Reply-To: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) Yesterday afternoon I joined 100-150 other people (if someone else has a better count please speak up) in a protest to support the Windermere residents who have not been allowed to retrieve their belongings as well as well as the denied entry to the building to rescue cats who were also victims of the fire. ... etc I'm just guessing here, but I'd be surprised if the owners' denial of entry to former residents and others isn't related to issues of liability -- monetarily or morally. If the building has been declared dangerous, in imminent danger of collapse, or words to that effect by officials with expertise in such things, the owner's insurance company and/or attorney have probably indicated that massive lawsuits would follow if someone got hurt inside after being given specific or tacit permission to enter. And the insurance company would probably claim that the permission was a violation of its policy and would walk away from responsibility for paying. All this, above and beyond how an owner would feel if, after allowing someone in, that persongot hurt or killed in a way that retrospectively seemed highly predictable. I sympathize with anyone whose personal property is inside the building. And sympathize even more strongly if someone's pet is in there -- physically able to leave but probably too scared, disoriented, hungry, etc. to do so. But, candidly, I wouldn't go inside a condemned building just because some knucklehead with no special expertise in such things, and who didn't exercise good judgement, went in, got some things, came back out unscathed, and said it didn't look dangerous. This reminds me of the stories about disasters that befall firefighters when beams, walls, bathtubs, and so forth fall on and pin them down. And these are people trained to go into places in imminent danger of collapse. Forget about the material goods. As for the pets -- presumably mostly cats -- do the experts have any ideas about how to lure them out? A two- or three-story jump isn't beyond what most cats can do instinctively. ------------------------------------------------------ Alan Krigman KRF Management 215-349-6500, fax 215-349-6502 _www.krf.icodat.com_ (http://www.iconworldwide.com/krf)
