The families of San Francisco State student Michela Gregory, 20, and her her boyfriend Alex Vega, 22, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, who died in the Oakland warehouse fire, have filed lawsuits. Gregory and Vega were among the 36 people who died in the December 2 fire at “Ghost Ship”, an Oakland warehouse used as an artists’ collaborative. It was the nation’s deadliest fire since the 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 100 people.
The complaints allege negligence on the part of several people, including the building owner Chor Ng and the primary tenants Derick Ion Almena and his wife, Micah Allison, who organized the transition of the warehouse into an artists’ collaborative. Also named were event promoter Jon Hrabko, performer Joel Shanahan, known as Golden Donna, and the neighboring business that shared electricity with the warehouse. Our law firm is not representing the plaintiffs.
The warehouse had no fire-suppression sprinklers in the building, and neither of the two stairwells, one of which was made of discarded pallets, led to an exit, according to fire officials. The maze-like layout out artist spaces left no safe exit in the event of an emergency, the suit alleges. The bodies of Gregory and Vega were found together, his arms around her.
