ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – On January 24, a fire in Downtown Escanaba took the life of one person and destroyed two businesses. As law enforcement continue to investigate the incident, neighboring establishments are dealing with the aftermath.
“I was going to work at 3:00 in the morning and got the text and then came down about 4:00 to see all the smoke enveloping this building from the fire,” said Craig Woerpel, owner of the building that houses the East Ludington Gallery.
After Public Safety crews put out the blaze, Woerpel says the first issue to address was the water damage.
“We realized that there was two feet of water in the basement,” he said. “The boiler no longer works, which means we don’t have heat in the building.”
As the roof of Schwalbach Kitchens next door collapsed, a crack formed in the wall of the gallery.
“We pulled the paneling away from the inside, and you can see that the crack—that’s a 13-inch deep wall—and the crack is at three inches at one point,” Woerpel said.
That crack left all of the art inside the gallery to sustain heavy smoke damage.
“This is what the counter looked like,” Woerpel said of the image below. “This was a cribbage board that was here in the shape of the U.P. and that’s what the smoke damage is. You can’t even rub that off.”
The fire also displaced Woerpel’s niece, Lauren Hovland, who lived above the gallery.
“She had a print that she was working on that was covered, and you can see the difference between the canvas and where the smoke came down, so it ruined a lot of her artwork and her art supplies,” he said.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help her restock her art supplies. To support the 24 gallery artists who lost their work, the Bonifas Arts Center will host a spaghetti dinner on Friday, February 2, from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
“People need to realize that the fire impacted more than two buildings,” Woerpel said. “Although there was a death there and that’s extremely tragic, it’s still impacting the people who live around the fire, including the artists from the gallery. We also need to find out what we can do for the people on the other side of the fire. They need new furniture; they can’t get it with low income. We need to figure out how we can support them.”
The Bonifas spaghetti dinner will take place in the Studio Gallery with a suggested donation of $10. Attendees are asked to use the studio entrance. Click here for more information. Click here to donate to Hovland’s GoFundMe.
Anyone with ideas of ways to help other neighboring businesses and residents can contact Woerpel at craig@escanabadowntown.com.
