Official: Residents Back by Week's End After Electrical Fire

Residents will be let back into a 14-story Newark public housing building by the end of week after they were displaced by an electrical fire Saturday night that knocked out power throughout the structure, according to officials from the Newark Housing Authority.

Workers currently are fixing the electrical wiring in one of the buildings at the Seth Boyden Elderly housing complex at 120 Dayton St. in the South Ward, where the electrical fire occurred, said Lauren Hudock, policy advisor at the housing authority, which owns the structure. Residents may be back in their homes as early as Tuesday or by the end of the week at the latest, she said.

About 100 people originally were displaced Saturday night when an electrical panel apparently blew out at 8:03 p.m., said Newark Fire Capt. John Brown and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

The accidental fire occurred in a small closet on the fourth floor, said Brown. Besides that closet, there was subsequent damage in a fifth-floor closet and some smoke damage in the building.

Those displaced, many of them senior citizens and some in wheelchairs, were relocated temporarily to Dayton Street School, according to Brown and Booker. There were no reported injuries.

Booker said some residents had been taken in either by their family or friends. But at 12:30 a.m. Sunday, officials were trying to determine where the remaining people, about 30 to 50, would be housed.

"We are going to be figuring that out," said Booker. "That's my last option (Dayton School). I don't want people to sleep in the cafeteria."

Booker later tweeted at 1:30 a.m. Sunday, "We're relocating residents to hotels now. The endurance of the residents & their positive attitudes despite this awful situation inspires." Around 5:45 a.m., he tweeted that "all displaced residents have been transported to their temporary rooms."

City officials said that they've relocated people — with the help of the American Red Cross — to the Newark YMCA on Broad Street and to local hotels.

The city's office of emergency management is handling the incident, said Brown. Booker said officials from the Newark Housing Authority also were part of the effort, along with the city's fire and police departments.

At the school cafeteria early Sunday morning, Booker and municipal employees handed out more than 200 doughnuts, muffins and cookies to the displaced. Pizza was later distributed, followed by a prayer given by the mayor.

Valentino Aikens, 47, who was watching the horror movie "Quarantine 2" when the fire interrupted him, was pleased by the city's response.

"I liked that housing had an evacuation plan in place," he said while munching on cheese pizza. "It's a good thing."

This is a breaking news story. Continue to check Patch for updates.

[Editor's note: This story first published June 12 at 1:45 a.m. It has since been updated.]