A Meridian resident, I woke up sometime after 3am to the sound of an alarm. I walked outside and saw smoke coming from Copia. It's very sad and not good at all for Copia although fortunately I heard no reports of anyone hurt. I'm not sure how Red is doing. I don't know of any damage to the Meridian, although there I smelled some smoke in the hallways.
We had some families with children evacuated and it was pretty cold out. Someone from the city coordinated three Metro buses outside for us to warm up in. The Shell station was open, which was good. I heard the Renaissance Grand was open and had coffee available. A fair amount of people were waiting there. Salvation Army was there as well with coffee, snacks etc. Thank you Police & Fire Department, as well as everyone else who protect the community and made an uncomfortable situation a little better.
I brought out my 30D and snapped some pictures after we were let in the building sometime well after 5am. I wish I had taken the camera out with me initially but then again, it was 3am I had just been startled awake and well I didn't know what in the hell was going on. I'll post them later after my hands warm up and I get some sleep.
Woah, this is horrible...first of all I hope that nobody was hurt, also hopefully everybody had good fire insurance policies which will allow them to rebuild. It's weird that this is not on the pOst Dispatch website or any other news outled....there was a little blurb on KSDK.com
This is terrible, this is one of my favorite places, there wines are amazing. From the news report I just watched it sounds like no one was hurt, but I guess there were also some small fires in the vangaurd lofts. I was going to take my fiance the other night, I guess now she is going to have to wait. I really hope they rebuild!!
why is there nothing on stltoday about this? all they had to do was look out the window on this one. assuming it is an actual bustling newsroom in there 24 hours a day.
bikin'_man wrote:why is there nothing on stltoday about this? all they had to do was look out the window on this one. assuming it is an actual bustling newsroom in there 24 hours a day.
I took this pic from my car this morning. The second floor windows are broken/open. I couldn't remember if Copia was on the first floor of a taller building or not. I also saw the scorched patio "tent" from Tucker. I hope they reopen!
I have several pics from my friends loft next to copia and overlooking their roof. He was out of town and I went down to check out potential damage. The loft has one window that has a lot of smoke damage. Considering the loft is only 50 ft from the fire I was a miracle nothing major was damaged.
I live in Vangard, and was woken up around 3:15 by our alarm. It was unbelieveable the number of fire engines they had there.
Our building suffered more damage than the Meridian due to being attached directly with the building Copia was in and having a corridor that connects directly with the patio. By 7AM they were allowing people back into their units except for the 2nd floor, which unfortunately is where I live. I finally convinced them to let me up with a fireman as an escort and there was about 2 inches of water covering the floors in the halls. My Apt wasn't as bad, as I have the unit farthest from Copia, but I imagine al residents of the 2nd floor will have to move out as all of the carpet and probably much of the drywall on that floor will have to be replaced.
What a night. I can't believe it was arson. I would like to thank the good people with the fire department for doing a great job and keeping the fire fromn spreading into any of the ajacent buildings and also the folks at the Renaissance who had coffee, pasties, etc and allowed people to warm up in the lounge.
Glad everyone seems to be ok. Same person as the fire in the new apartments currently under construction on Lindell? This is rediculous. I don't know what the agenda could possibly be in this act. People seem to actively want to ruin development in this city.
Below are pictures I took from last night and this morning. Doesn't the person who did this know they were likely going to hurt not only Copia but the surrounding area and possibly kill people as well? It seems the Meridian and Red were lucky as compared to Vanguard. Someone needs to do some friggin hard time.
By the way, I talked with the manager of Flamingo Bowl this afternoon about stuff and we talked about this shortly. He said he was @ Flamingo last nite when it happened. He saw us outside and wanted to open up for us but their liquor license prevents non-employees from being inside the premises from 3-6am. Seeing as they were new, he didn't want to push any luck.
there was that employee that said he was outside in the alley at the time of the fire. Has anyone entertained the idea that someone at the restaurant had something to do with it?? Just a thought...
I live in the Taylor Bldg, fourth floor. The windows overlook the Copia roof. I'm out of town but my flatmate said the smoke damage is bad. All clothing may be ruined.
Sounds like a disgruntled employee to me. That block has been set on fire and peppered with bullets in the last month.
I just can't believe that this happened. I am very glad that no one was hurt. Why would someone want to put another's life in danger to make some kind of statement. A very stupid statement if you ask me. The person or people that did this have no respect for human life nor the great things that are happening in this city.
I saw in the article that they plan to reopen. I really hope that they do because they are a great addition to downtown and it would be sad to see them go. I also hope that is doesn't stop anyone else from opening a business downtown.
ChiHeadDoc wrote:there was that employee that said he was outside in the alley at the time of the fire. Has anyone entertained the idea that someone at the restaurant had something to do with it?? Just a thought...
Gee, ya think?
The employee who reported it will be suspect numero uno. Recently fired employees will be next. Then comes the owner.
"We have to either start voting for loony third party candidates or not voting at all. If we keep voting for the lesser of two evils, it's going to keep getting more evil" - Penn Jillette
Well, not to give away too much, they usually discover traces of accelerant by the use of a bomb and arson dog and then once th dog pinpoints the ignition points the lab can confirm it. It is actually quite easy to differentiate a purposefully set fire from an accident because of the presence of accelerants.
Just got this email from my daughter who lives in the Vanguard next door to Copia....Oliver is her cat. My original email to her is below.
oh my god...it was crazy.
I got home at 330am right when the alarms went off. I was still in the basement. Someone told me copia was on fire and I went to run up to get oliver but I almost passed out at the fifth floor from the smoke, so I went outside. I met up with people I know in the building and got really nervous when we saw burning ash coming from the top of my building. This was on the washington side, so we went around back and saw 7 firetrucks spewing in as much water as they could. The place was a mess of flames. I called angie and she and some people came down. By this time it was about 445 and they still didnt have the fire out. The whole block was closed and covered in smoke. Angie got there and we went upstairs to see if oliver was ok. The smell and the smoke was intense but I opened the windows and decided oliver would be ok. I was unsure if they were going to let us stay in the building because there was caution tape up when we came back down, so I went and stayed at angies for the night. It was pretty crazy, and I got some pretty good pictures of it.
I just heard the news about the fire at Copia. There wasn't much on the news until late last night.The Urbanstl blog has lots of photos and more news than the local media. They said that your building got a lot of smoke damage on the lower floors. You building alarms also went off and the residents evacuated. Did you have to hit the streets too?
I hope you are fine and didn't suffer any damage. A funny thing happened to me very early yesterday morning. I usually get up around 4 am, and I'm sitting at my computer smelling smoke. I thought it was my building or nearby. It must have been from the Copia fire, which isn't that far away.
