By Katie Langford
The Denver Post
DENVER — Dozens of residents were displaced from assisted-living and memory-care units, and eight people were taken to a hospital after an explosion and transformer fire at a southeast Denver retirement community on Wednesday.
Denver Fire Department investigators determined later Wednesday that a construction crew working near the center of the main building at the Eastern Star Masonic Retirement Campus, 2445 S. Quebec St., hit a power line, which caused the explosion that set the transformer on fire, Capt. Luis Cedillo said.
Fire officials did not know how seriously the hospitalized people were injured, whether those injured were workers or residents or how long the building will be uninhabitable. Eighty-seven residents will be taken to hospitals or other assisted-living facilities, Cedillo said.
A controller for Eastern Star, which provides tiered levels of care including independent living, assisted living and memory care, according to the company’s website, declined to comment, and officials with the Masonic Communities & Services Association referred questions to the facility’s staff.
Residents in the community’s independent-living cottages told The Denver Post they did not know something was wrong until they saw the road filled with emergency vehicles and people evacuated from the building.
Windows shattered in the explosion were visible from the street as staff members and first responders worked to find places for residents to go and loaded them onto buses Wednesday afternoon.
Lakewood resident Amy Phelps stood on a lawn nearby, waiting to hear where her father-in-law would be taken and how long he would be displaced.
Phelps found out about the explosion when a former Eastern Star employee texted her, and she came straight from work.
“I just wanted to make sure everyone was OK,” she said.
Phelps did not receive any notifications from Eastern Star about the fire but said she did not mind if they were focused on caring for residents. It’s one of a few places that accepts people on Medicaid but doesn’t treat them differently from non-Medicaid residents, she said. Her grandmother now lives in the independent-living community.
Resident John Nies realized something was wrong when he returned to his independent-living cottage from lunch with friends and saw the street around the main building filled with fire engines and ambulances. “I just looked around and thought, ‘What the hell is going on?’” he said.
He took his two Shih Tzus, Pala and Sarah, for a walk to try to find out what happened and met neighbor Joanne Johnson . Neither heard the explosion and found out there was an emergency only when they went outside.
Although Wednesday afternoon was chaotic, it’s generally a quiet community, Johnson said. She and her husband moved into the independent-living section about five years ago from a nearby neighborhood.
“We’ve really liked the quiet familiarity,” she said.
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