By most accounts, the evacuation of Penwood Place did not go well. The word “chaos” comes to mind.
That and “unconscionable.”
Some tenants say they had only 15 minutes to pack everything they would need for an undetermined period of time.
Most were told they had to leave immediately, even though they had been living in the building for five days after a fire May 8 damaged the 1970s-era wallboard and exposed them to what the Denver Fire Department called “astronomically high” levels of asbestos.
Some folks were out of town and returned to find that they were locked out and that their computers, documents and all other possessions were out of reach.
“I was stunned,” said tenant John Griffin, a microbiologist who has been living out of his car and sleeping on the sofas of kindhearted friends since he was evacuated May 13. “Nobody was in charge. Nobody said anything to us.”
Griffin said he only heard about the evacuation because he walked out of the building at Eighth Avenue and Pennsylvania Street and was met by someone who told him the place was being secured and he would not be able to get back in.
“I was just standing there with my keys and my cellphone saying, ‘What do you mean we’re being evacuated?”‘
Later that day he and other frantic tenants were granted brief access to their apartments to gather possessions.
“I had only 15 minutes, so I grabbed my escape kit with my passport, Social Security card, birth certificate and stuff like that, my dirty laundry and my cellphone charger. That was absolutely critical.”
On Monday, beleaguered Penwood Place evacuees gathered in the parking lot and peppered building manager Linda Brownlee with questions.
Where’s the mail? Where are the rent refunds? And mostly, when will the building reopen?
“It’s been hard on everybody,” said Brownlee, who is living in a Marriott hotel while she awaits word from the state health department on when the asbestos abatement work will be complete.
Brownlee confirmed that most tenants got the word that they were being evacuated when they saw people in hazmat suits taping plastic sheeting over the windows and doors.
“Nobody called us; nobody went door-to-door,” said Griffin.
There was no time for such niceties, Brownlee said. It took five days after the fire to get the test results on the asbestos levels, and then everybody had to get out immediately.
Sara Caplan, who is disabled by multiple sclerosis, learned that she had to leave after most people were already out.
“A couple of hazmat guys walked into my apartment, shattered a lamp and terrified my cat,” she said. “It was all dramatic.”
She had time to pack her cat and her prescription medications. That was it.
For the past 10 days, she’s been alternately staying at a friend’s house and her father’s place. She’s wearing borrowed clothes and kicking herself for not having renter’s insurance.
She’s in good company.
Brownlee estimated that only about 25 percent of the roughly 250 tenants carried renter’s insurance. Those without are on their own – the building owner isn’t providing interim housing, and the Red Cross doesn’t assist with evacuations caused by maintenance issues.
Most tenants should be able to return to their apartments within a week, Brownlee said, and that’s when concern about the health effects of asbestos exposure likely will escalate.
“It’s impossible to know” what the effects will be, said Christopher Dann, public information officer in air pollution control at the state health department.
He’s spoken to about 100 of the tenants so far, and no one has reported experiencing any symptoms of respiratory distress. Some have said they’re worried about moving back into the building though, even after the health department determines that it’s habitable again.
They may not have much of a choice.
“They all have leases,” Brownlee said.
And the rent is due next week.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it misspelled the name of Christopher Dann, spokesman for the state health department
