One year ago, a massive fire ate its way through the Peachtree Apartments. April 26, 2008 was a devastating day for more than 160 people living in the Norwich apartment complex. The good news is that they all lived. But the six alarm blaze left them all homeless.
Sunday marks the anniversary of the day it all happened. Now, as fire marshals review plans for new developments in the area, safety will be their new focus, and issues like water pressure, manpower and radio communications will continue to be addressed.
Because fires can consume a structure in seconds, the city has streamlined radio communications and recently started using a citywide “working fire” tone that mobilizes all of the city’s six departments at once -- allowing them to cut down on response time.
“It’s a citywide effort to ensure we try and prevent something this devastating from ever happening again,” Norwich Fire Chief Kenneth Scandariato said. “It was wonderful we didn’t lose anyone, but to me it’s a loss. People lost everything and firefighters don’t like to lose. I can’t help but think, ‘I wish we could have done more.’ This is our responsibility to the public,” Scandariato said.
Local
Building officials say the fire raised awareness of larger structures and roof codes. This weekend, a ceremony was supposed to be held to honor the firefighters who responded, but Norwich officials were forced to cancel because they did not have permission to use the site.
