Several missteps at the scene of last year’s fatal fire in SouthPark may have contributed to the circumstances that left two men dead and required emergency assistance from many more people, newly obtained state data shows.
For one thing, an air horn — a loud device often used on construction sites to alert workers to emergencies — has never sounded, according to U.S. Department of Labor records obtained by The Charlotte Observer through a public records request.
The five-alarm fire, Charlotte’s largest in recent history, killed Reuben Holmes and Demonte Sherill, two men who were installing windows on the sixth floor of the rising apartment building.
In April, Department of Labor officials fined three companies more than $56,000 for a series of violations related to the monstrous fire.
The newly released 169-page file provides more details on how construction site safety violations likely delayed the escape of some of the roughly 35 workers on the site, or — in the case of the two workers who died — could have escaped . prevented them from reaching safety.
“It’s crazy,” said Faith Fox, a Charlotte attorney representing the families of Holmes and Sherrill. “All these little things could have saved two people’s lives. Fundamental issues, such as the deployment of an air horn, contributed to the deaths of my clients.”
An air horn could have alerted the workers
The state labor inspector determined that sounding an air horn could have quickly alerted workers to the May 2023 fire.
“The use of an audible alarm, such as an air horn or multiple air horns, would have provided immediate warning to all employees to evacuate the building to a safe location,” the DOL report said.
Shortly after the fire, an unnamed construction site representative told a North Carolina investigator that he did not know where the air horn was stored. Minutes later during an interview, he changed that and said the air horn was in a “job box” in a parking garage on site, the documents show.
According to the newly released documents, the state investigator eventually found an air horn attached to a fence at an entrance to the complex. According to the data, it is unclear whether this was the air horn closest to where the fire broke out.
Previously filed court documents show that workers at the site ran up and down the site’s only staircase, shouting “fire, fire” to alert those working above the main floor.
That’s an inadequate way to warn people in such danger, according to state investigative documents.
“Employees ascending seven floors of stairs and traveling through each level to verbally warn all employees to evacuate the building during a rapidly growing structural fire and increasing smoke is not an effective alarm system,” according to a document in the investigation file.
No alarms or escape plans
The seven-story Modera SouthPark project would include 239 apartments facing Liberty Row Drive.
Work on the complex began in January 2022, with builders using an increasingly common construction where the lower floor is made of non-combustible material such as concrete and the upper floors are built of wood. This type of building is particularly vulnerable to large, fast-burning fires during construction, industry experts have found.
The fire started in the bottom floor garage, where a parked trailer contained a generator and flammable spray foam chemicals.
At 8:55 a.m. on May 18, 2023, a worker who was spraying foam insulation on the second floor of the building walked to the main floor and saw flames coming from the back of the trailer.
According to the DOL timeline, he and at least one other worker tried to put out the flames with fire extinguishers. But they couldn’t.
“The fire spread quickly and involved the recently installed foam insulation on the ceiling of the two-story parking garage,” the investigation found.
Investigators concluded the likely cause of the fire was a “diesel engine malfunction,” the newly released documents state.
As the Labor Department has previously said, the construction site did not have a code-required alarm system to alert workers to the impending hazard, the report said.
Department officials also said safety steps have been taken MCRT Carolinas Construction LLC, the contractor, did not correspond to the construction site’s emergency action plan. The plan described three exits from the upper floors, but only one existed on the day of the fire, for example.
The newly obtained documents show that MCRT failed to discuss its safety plan with subcontractors on site. That, along with the lack of exits, “could have contributed to the delay in safely evacuating all personnel from the building during a fire.”
For example, officials at subcontractor Baker Insulation were not informed of the site’s emergency plan, according to state documents.
An unnamed representative of another subcontractor, Diversified Insulation, said he had not been informed of the plan and was not present at MCRT’s safety briefing at the site.
Holmes and Sherrill, the men who died in the fire, also did not attend the safety briefing, the newly released documents state.
In an email response to The Charlotte Observer, a representative for the developer, Mill Creek Residential, did not address the labor department’s findings.
Trapped on the sixth floor
Holmes and Sherrill were six floors up and about 450 feet from the only staircase exit when the fire broke out, DOL records show.
Charlotte firefighters tried to save them and their efforts have been documented in court documents.
First they tried to find a working standpipe, a legally required water source that firefighters use. The vertical pipes allow firefighters to tap water sources on multiple floors, eliminating the need to drag hundreds of pounds of hose up the stairs. But there was no working standpipe in the building that caught fire, records say.
Firefighters climbed to the sixth floor and could hear the two trapped men screaming for help, according to a lawsuit their families filed this year.
The smoke was so heavy that firefighters became lost, couldn’t find their way out and declared an emergency, the families’ complaint said. Finally they found the only staircase and escaped.
The bodies of Holmes and Sherrill were recovered the next day.
In April, DOL officials fined MCRT $46,875 for failing to implement an emergency plan or have an emergency response system. They were also cited for not having exits that were not configured to provide an easy way out for all employees, inspectors said.
State labor officials also fined subcontractor Diversified Insulation $3,125 for failing to maintain and make available copies of hazardous material safety data sheets to workers.
And they fined Kentucky Overhead Door, Inc., doing business as Baker Insulation, $6,250 for two violations. They include that there was no written ‘breathing program’ and no list of hazardous chemicals on site.
MCRT and Diversified Insulation have paid their fines, said Erin Wilson, spokesperson for the labor department.
The state reduced Kentucky Overhead Door’s fine to $4,687 after a settlement agreement in January.
