As debate continues over whether a fire dispatcher's typo led to three deaths and four injuries in a Woodside, Queens home on Saturday, it turns out the basement apartments where the victims lived had been eyed by the Department of Buildings before. According to the Daily News, the two-family home "had been illegally converted into a five-family residence with another seven single rooms"—but when the DOB inspected it in 1990 and 2004, they found nothing wrong!
Now the DOB is reviewing those findings. Apparently the renovation work blocked the victims' exit; one victim's uncle said, "It's totally the landlord's fault. The basement is not a place for the living - [Subir Barua] played with their lives." And when asked about the fire department's response time, mayoral spokesman Jason Post said of the non-working smoke detectors, barred basement windows, and overall illegal subdivision, "In the scheme of errors that contributed to three people dying, these are probably more significant." The Queens DA office is investigating the fire.
The fire took place at a home on 65th Street; the dispatcher accidentally typed "62nd Street" and Engine Company 292 and Rescue Company 4, both located 1/2 a mile away, lost 2 minutes trying to get to the fire, according to the fire union.
