Lackawanna, N.Y. (WBEN) - An Erie County jury made a landmark verdict on Tuesday, unanimously finding the owner and tenant of the Bethlehem Steel complex that burned in November 2016 in Lackawanna guilty of gross negligence.
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The fire that burned on site for several days not only sent plumes of black smoke and ash over parts of the City of Lackawanna and other nearby neighborhoods, it also caused property damage and other health issues for residents in the following years.
Lackawanna Mayor Annette Iafallo believes the decision from the Erie County jury was fair and just.
"They should have taken the precautions that they needed to," said Iafallo on Wednesday. "I know when I first came into office [in January 2020], I went after them and that building, because I got complaints from so many people. This was already after the fire, but they left the building a mess, and it was a problem. But it put our first responders at risk, it harmed all the residents that live in that area and our city as a whole. So I totally agree that it's a fair and just verdict.
"It's a long time coming. It should have come sooner."
Iafallo says residents came to her shortly after she took office with the complaints not just because the site was an eyesore, but they were also very concerned about their health, and how the site might affect their health down the road.
Now that residents are legally able to file lawsuits against the owner (Great Lakes Industrial Development, LLC) and the tenant (Industrial Materials Recycling LLC) of the site, she feels any resident who wishes for further justification for the fire has the right to seek it.
"Get an attorney and go for it. They deserve to get some sort of compensation," Iafallo said.
Joe Parot has lived in the Bethlehem Park neighborhood for more than 50 years with his wife, and raised his family along Lincoln Avenue, diagonally across the street from where the fire raged nearly eight years ago. He also worked at the Bethlehem Steel site for about 10 years before retiring.
When hearing of the guilty verdict from the Erie County jury on Tuesday, it didn't surprise him, knowing the owner and tenant of the site were responsible for what happened.
"I did take some video after the fire, maybe the spring after the fire, and they were cleaning up, they had the hazmat suits on, and they had replaced the yellow police tape with white tapes, saying, 'Asbestos. Danger. Stay back.' And there's kids hanging on the fence right by the tape. So I had my iPad, and I had my wife hold the steering wheel and I took video going down. They would rinse all the trucks off and everything, and I said, 'That place is loaded with asbestos,'" said Parot in an interview with WBEN. "And then the next day, they lined up 12 dumpsters there so no one could take pictures. I had the pictures for about five or six years, and I said, 'Nothing's going to happen with that,' so I just deleted them. The attorneys said, 'We wish you would have had those pictures.' Well, I didn't think anything would happen."
While Parot acknowledges the fire didn't affect him as much as some of the other residents who lived closer to the fire on Lincoln Avenue, he distinctly remembers that day for a number of reasons. Where he was, though, he remembers hearing a number of explosions as the fire raged.
"When it got to some of the buildings where they had stored RVs and boats and things like that, the propane tanks would start exploding," Parot explained. "It was just a terrible fire. They couldn't get at it. They had the water cannons go up. They came over here, cut a hole in the fence and tried to drag a hose through there, but they couldn't do that. They didn't have a long enough hose, I guess. It burned for quite a few days, and finally it went out."
The day after the fire started, the winds changed, blowing the smoke from the fire their way in the neighborhood. That was when Parot knew they had to leave.
"And I said, 'Oh boy. We cannot stay here.' I told [my wife], I said, 'Especially you with your breathing and everything, we've got to get you out of here,'" said Parot, who notes his wife has dealt with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
After leaving their home for a couple days, Parot and his wife returned home, where their daughter came over to help wash the house with a pressure washer. He noted the house also smelled bad for a while until they were able to get rid of the odor.
As for some of his neighbors down the street, to this day they still haven't fully recovered from the fire.
"Some of the siding melted, and a lot of people had soot in their houses and smoke. There's a lot of houses here that haven't been fixed or remodeled or anything," Parot noted. "This one I've been working on for 50 years, so we were in fairly good shape, except for the smell."
Parot adds that a number of residents right near the site of the fire are still angry about what transpired before, during and after the fire.
"They thought, really, that somebody would do something, especially with the asbestos. They used to store tons of it right across the street there," he said. "I remember the guys that used it was the plumbers. They'd cut it with a handsaw, and asbestos would be flying everywhere. So I'd come home and I'd shake all my work clothes out before we washed them, because I knew it was always like that in there."
What Parot would like to see happen sometime in the near future is for the buildings still remaining on the Bethlehem Steel site to come down.
"Every politician that knocked on the door and asked for a vote, I said, 'I'll vote for you if you tear that down and put a park there for us.' But I guess it'll just stay there. And that never would have went down, except for that fire," Parot said. "Once that grease and paint starts burning, there's not much you can do about it."
Just a stone's throw away from the Bethlehem Steel site in Lackawanna is Larry Hornberger, who has spent the last 66 years of his life in the Village of Blasdell. That is where a massive amount of smoke and soot from the fire originally blew toward before the winds later changed.
"The smoke was horrendous. I walked out of my house, I didn't know what happened," said Hornberger in an interview with WBEN. "I got in my vehicle and drove to work, and then I was on Ridge Road in Lackawanna. I looked to the left, and there was horrendous smoke very high up in the sky, and was moving South over where I live. And the flames were very high."
In the days and weeks after the fire burned at the Bethlehem Steel site, he says the damage caused from the massive blaze is irreparable.
"I had to fix some of my property that was ruined by the smoke, and me and my wife have some physical ailments from the fire," he detailed.
According to Hornberger, the vinyl and walls of his house were damaged, as well as some furniture, and part of his roof had to be replaced out of his own pocket at the time.
In addition, he says him and his wife have had a lot of visits to the doctor for thyroid and lung issues that can be attributed to the fire.
Upon hearing of Tuesday's verdict from the Erie County jury, Hornberger was satisfied with the decision.
"Mrs. [Jeanne] Vinal did a fantastic job in the court for all of us clients. Many people were affected by the smoke and the fire, and I feel justice was done by the verdict," Hornberger said. "I hope many people can get some closure."
While many of the 80 named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, along with the potential for 3,000 "John and Jane Doe" plaintiffs, now have the opportunity to pursue further legal actions against the owner and tenant of the site, Hornberger says he's just fine with what came down from Tuesday's verdict.
"This verdict will be closure for me. I'm happy with that," he said.