NOBLESVILLE -
Dozens of people who lost everything in a massive fire at a Noblesville apartment complex are now blaming their landlord. They say a problem at their apartment complex could put tens of thousands of people at risk.
All that Anna Espino and her husband have will fit into two trash bags. The material memories of twenty years of marriage, raising a family and working to build their lives have all been destroyed in a fire.
Espino and her husband, like the others that once called the apartment complex home, are trying to pick up and move on, a few of the Deer Chase Apartments residents burned out by a fire were given coupons for clothes and food
"Clothing vouchers for Goodwill and coupons for free pizza," said Jennifer Mitchell.
Other than that, Mitchell says, she has nothing left. So far, the coupons are all the apartment complex owners have offered to the fire victims. Eric Pavlack has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the affected residents.
"The complex response has been very poor and very slow. Frankly, very insensitive," Pavlack said.
In the lawsuit, he claims the owner of the apartment complex, Crestline, "utterly failed to maintain those fire hydrants." The hydrants are private and owned by the apartment complex and are the reason firefighters had to run almost 5,000 feet of hose to a properly working hydrant off the apartment complex property.
"It was discovered that the lack of pressure was because someone had partially closed the main water line to the apartments," the lawsuit states.
Noblesville Fire Division Chief Rick Russell told Eyewitness News after the fire that his fellow firefighters were hampered by a lack of water pressure, because someone had partially shut the main water line going into the apartment complex.
"They had to turn it numerous times and once you got it open, we had water," Russell said.
He says fire fighters then had enough pressure to put out the fire, but by that time, the building and almost everything inside was destroyed.
The residents' lawyer is seeking damages for property and emotional distress.
"You might go 50 years without needing a fire hydrant. On the day you need them to work, they have to work," Pavlack said.
The owners and managers of Deer Chase Apartments have been instructed by their legal counsel to not comment on the pending litigation.
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