HAPPY VALLEY, Ore. (KOIN) — Both cleanup and questions continue in Happy Valley after a 3-alarm fire at an empty fiberglass warehouse raised concerns about airborne asbestos and confusion from residents who were and were not evacuated.
Investigators said surface testing showed no asbestos at the site.
Dan Johnson, the program supervisor for the Clackamas County Development Agency, told KOIN 6 News officials did all they could to alert residents near the fire, including those at the Rosewood Station Apartments.
“There was every attempt, every option available to us to notify people we took,” Johnson said.
Resident Megan Bell said she received the first emergency alert that went out around 7:26 a.m. — about 3 hours after the fire erupted at Miles Fiberglass. But Bell said she did not get an alert to evacuate her apartment.
“Somehow that message did not get passed along,” Bell said. “As far as I know, no one in my building was evacuated.”
County officials said firefighters went door-to-door to evacuate residents.
At the Clackamas County board meeting, leaders said they received a contact list from the property management company to call the residents.
“By late afternoon,” said Daniel Nibouar with Clackamas County Disaster Management, “the ECO sent text and voice recordings to residents on the contact list as well as calling each of these numbers to advise the individual residents of the continued evacuation advisory.”
Bell said she did not receive the notification.
“When I got the call at 6 p.m., it was from a Clackamas County official. He asked for me by name,” she said. “He said there’s a snag. And I said yes. And I told him that we had not been evacuated. And we were really confused. And he didn’t know why we wouldn’t have been evacuated.”
Bell also said she still has not heard from the property managers.
“We’ve received no communication from our property management, not since that initial notice Saturday morning,” she said.
KOIN 6 News again reached out to the property management company but have not yet heard back.
