This is so very urgent!
Begin forwarded message:
the contractors are here already - please come out to 48th and Walnut!
we need a lot of people! they've begun unloading heavy equipment,
and news crews are here.
jb
On Monday, February 14, 2011, JB Farley <[email protected]> wrote:
Please forward this on!
Demonstration today (Monday) at 9:00 am to prevent the demolition
process from beginning. Please join us!
On January 10, the disastrous Windermere Court apartment fire was
at the forefront of Philadelphia's attention. As traumatic as that
day was, the last month has been a lot worse for the former
residents. While the entire greater Philadelphia community went
out of its way to show us love and generosity, the city and the
building owners have left us stranded in a twilight zone.
The city has no way to deal with the repercussions of a disaster
like the Windermere fire. We were 90 households. Imagine if the
city faced a larger disaster! How would it respond? There was
terrible co-ordination between organizations, with little evidence
of information-sharing. There was no central clearinghouse for
information about the fire, the displaced residents, the
investigation, or the future of the building and its contents.
The former residents had to build that on own own. With a lot of
hard work, we generated our own list of displaced Windermere
residents and their contact info, which the city later asked for.
They didn't have their own. Some of us trudged down to City Hall
and the MSB, and some of us searched on-line, all to track down any
available documents related to the fire, because we couldn't get
answers from officials supposedly in charge. In meetings, we found
ourselves having to brief the city on developments, instead of the
other way around.
We took responsibility for one another. The city, the management,
and their insurance company instead played a game of “Pass the
Buck,” and they've been playing it for too long now. We need to
know if we or our representatives will be allowed into the
building. Right now, if you talk to the owners, they say it's up
to the insurance company, and the insurance company says it's up to
L&I, and L&I says it's up to the owners. It's like rocks-paper-
scissors, except we always lose. As we scrambled to find answers,
they rushed through the demolition approval process. Demolition
proceedings are due to start Monday morning, February 14.
While there is damage throughout the building, most of the 90+
units were not destroyed. The contents of those apartments were
not magically destroyed that day. As the sun rose the day after
the fire, sitting just out of arm's reach were family photographs,
priceless heirlooms, fireproof lock boxes containing birth
certificates and immigration documents and cash savings, love
letters, gifts, books, mementos. Some of that is still in the
building (perhaps).
Much much worse, there are still pets in the building. Although we
were assured a week after the fire that no pets had survived,
owners of missing pets did not give up. A grassroots effort has
managed to lure missing animals into baited traps and get them back
to their owners. After our protest at the building this last
Saturday, the PSPCA broke the locks and entered the building with a
warrant. They rescued one cat, almost trapped another, and saw
fresh evidence of many cats still living in the building.
The PSPCA also gave us our first complete picture of what the
inside of the building looks like now.
It's been ransacked – looters emptied the contents of drawers onto
the floor, pried open lock boxes, left furniture untouched but took
the electronics. A number of registered guns are missing. This is
no surprise.
The city had already pulled police presence off with no notice to
us shortly after the fire. Then, the private security that
replaced them was pulled off last Tuesday. We only found out when
we checked on the building ourselves. Former residents had to form
our own security patrols, walking a beat around the building with
the wind chill below freezing every night. Suddenly, now that
demolition is imminent, the security company has reappeared.
The police said that when they were guarding the building, they
only let authorized people in. The management and the security
company say they didn't let any looters in either, and that any
looting happened prior to their watch.
The owners said they had a plan to clean the building and make
basic repairs – that was weeks ago. Our city council
representative said she initiated a plan to get insured contractors
into the building to retrieve our property, but called it off after
the owners claimed permission had to come from L&I – that was weeks
ago.
Why have we been abandoned like this?
Our neighbors lifted us up in our time of need. The Red Cross, the
Salvation Army, the Bible Way Baptist Church and 30 affiliated
Baptist churches, Local 44, the Drexel chapter of Alpha Pi Lamba,
friends, family, and complete strangers from all around us – they
lifted us from our misery and helped us get back on our feet.
But we no longed feel lifted up. After more than a month, all we
can feel is fed up. We are fed up with hearing five different
answers from three different people. Fed up with promises from our
city officials that amount to nothing. Fed up with closed meetings
and backroom dealings. Fed up with knowing that our property, our
pets, the pieces of our lives that we thought were benevolently
spared, that they may soon be destroyed with no second thought.
We ask any concerned Philadelphians to join us in a peaceful
protest this morning (Monday, February 14). If you would like to
show love to us and our cause and help us make a change, please
gather with us at 48th and Walnut at 8:45 am.
--
--For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
--Arthur C. Clarke
--
--For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
--Arthur C. Clarke
----
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