Fire Sprinkler Leak Forces 50 From Richmond, Va. Apartments

Jan. 16--More than 50 people -- including many with mental and physical disabilities -- were forced out of their apartments Tuesday morning after a fire sprinkler flooded most of their downtown Richmond building.

Firefighters were called to the Grace Place apartments, at East Grace and Fourth streets, shortly after 7:30 a.m. after a fire alarm was triggered by a sprinkler in an apartment on the eighth floor of the 11-story building, which dates to the 1920s.

Lt. Robbie Hagaman of the Richmond Fire Department said it took firefighters about 20 minutes to find the source of the leak and shut it off. By then, with the sprinkler gushing at what firefighters estimated was 30 to 40 gallons a minute, water had seeped through the lower floors, pooling on carpets and caving in pieces of ceiling, residents said.

"When I stepped outside my door, a panel from the ceiling in the hallway had fallen on the floor," said Zachary Richardson, a 56-year-old Marine Corps veteran who lives on the fourth floor. Richardson was one of dozens of people who were taken by the GRTC Transit System to a temporary shelter set up Tuesday by the Virginia Capital Region Red Cross at Fifth Baptist Church on Cary Street.

As of Tuesday night, 27 people were still staying in the shelter, said Jonathan McNamara, a Red Cross spokesman. A city building inspector has condemned the building as a result of the water damage, said city spokesman Mike Wallace, and it remained unclear when the residents might be able to return.

Firefighters and the building's manager, Cushman Wakefield|Thalhimer, were still investigating the extent of the damage and what caused the leak.

"We're just trying to figure out exactly what caused it. It's not an inspection issue, it doesn't appear to be a maintenance-type issue," Hagaman said.

"A lot of things can happen to cause a discharge," Hagaman added, including tampering and damage. "We'll try to rule out all possible options."

Many of the apartment building tenants are disabled or low-income.

Jeff Tomlin, a 44-year-old tenant who has lived in Grace Place for four years, uses a motorized chair to get around and said he ignored the fire alarm until firefighters banged on his door. He was at the shelter Tuesday but hoping for a hotel room because his arthrogryposis, a neuromuscular skeletal disorder that affects joints, would make it difficult for him to sleep in a cot.

"I can't stay here," he said.

The Red Cross will operate the shelter at the church, which had about 50 cots set up Tuesday afternoon, for as long as it's needed, McNamara said. Some Grace Place tenants with special needs already have been placed in other settings, including in hotels, he added. Others have left to stay with relatives.

McNamara said the Red Cross was working the Virginia Housing Development Authority and the city's Department of Social Services to develop a more long-term plan for the tenants.

"We'll meet with them to determine the next step," he said.

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