fire

Residents of the Buckingham Commons, an apartment complex in Rochester, NY, are still shaken after they awoke to a massive fire early in the morning on August 30.

According to TWC News, Rochester Fire Department Captain Bob Mulcahy noticed the building was in flames on his way to work on that fateful Sunday morning. He made the initial call to get crews over to the building, which is located on the corner of Plymouth Ave. and Allen St.

“You never think you’re going to drive down the street and see something like that, but there it was,” Mulcahy said.

Thanks to the vigilant 27-year-veteran of the RFD, first responders rushed to the scene of the fire and began notifying tenants to evacuate the building before it got out of control.

“You just have to get things going,” Mulcahy said. “Get to the building, make sure people are getting out, pull some alarms, and see what you can do.”

Rescue crews had to manually evacuate 36 apartments after noticing that many were still in the building despite the firefighters efforts to pull every fire alarm.

“I don’t believe the alarm system worked when it was pulled,” Deputy Chief Bob McEneaney of the RFD said.

According to 13-WHAM News, Rochester resident Jeanine Polito has photos from the scene of the fire that show extensive water damage caused by the hoses used to stifle the towering inferno.

Industry estimates indicate that about 14,000 people in the U.S. experience a water damage emergency at home or work each day. Eric Taylor, an employee of an office in the building, says that everything is still “business as usual,” despite the extensive damage.

“Everything is fine. You can tell the guys are going up and down doing some work in the elevator, but yeah you wouldn’t know anything is wrong at all in our office,” said Taylor.

While Taylor takes a laid-back approach to the situation, dozens of people who lived on the top two floors of Buckingham Commons are still unable to return to their homes.

The displaced residents are being given temporary housing by Buckingham Properties in the meantime. The company has refused comment on the incident, and the investigation into the faulty fire alarms is ongoing.