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November 8, 2007

Station evidence: List reveals who, how many in club

Nearly five years after The Station nightclub burned down and claimed 100 lives, the state said for the first time said who was in the building when it caught fire.

Hidden among 31 billion bytes of computer data, the attorney general made public a list of 458 people who investigators believe were inside the nightclub at the time of the fire.

The list closely matches one compiled by The Providence Journal, which, until today, was the only public accounting of who died in the worst fire ever on Rhode Island soil and who escaped. The Journal had counted 443 people and, using statistical techniques, estimated another 10 to 20 people had been missed.

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch’s list identifies people by first and last name and has middle initials or nicknames for many. Lynch’s list also shows birthdate, address, city and state, though the birthdate and address were blacked out on what was made public today. .

Lynch also categorized people by their “status,” such as nightclub patrons, band members or deceased, and by which exit they used to leave the club.

See the full list here.

According to West Warwick town documents, Denis P. Larocque, the town’s fire marshal until after the tragedy, had set several capacity limits for the club. They varied depending on certain conditions met by the nightclub’s owners, such as removing furniture from parts of the building. The highest of those limits was 404 people.

Larocque had set the club's capacity at 317 in December 1999.

A Providence Journal computer analysis in 2003, aided by review of a Channel 12 (WPRI) videotape of the fire, shows that, if the lower capacity had been enforced, virtually everyone in the building would have had time to escape.

-- Journal staff writer Paul Edward Parker

Posted by Andrea Panciera  at 5:38 PM | Permalink

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