A number of businesses in Waterford are counting the costs of a fire at a business centre in the city.
It is understood that between 30 and 40 of the 50 premises in the Tycor business centre have been severely damaged and will not be able to reopen.
It is believed that this will have an impact on up to 200 employees who were due to return to work after the weekend.
Jean Upton, co-owner of the Waterford Centre of Music said she first heard about the fire when she got a phone call from a parent of one of her students around 7pm to say she could see flames coming from the old Jute factory.
“When we arrived on the scene, it was clear to see from the get-go that it was very serious.
“When we got to our side of the complex, we could see flames already starting to rise from the middle of the complex and we knew we were in trouble.”
Jean explained that the unit where their business was located had not caught fire at that point, but they “literally stood there at the side of the road with all the emergency services and watched it burn to the ground”.
“It was utter devastation,” she said.
Ellenor Upton, Jean’s business partner said their students are all devastated and “a few of them actually came up to us and stood there with us, crying with us, as we watched it burn”.
“It wasn’t just a building to us, it was their place as well. It was their happy place and they lost it as much as we did.”
Ellenor explained that they spent 17 years building the business and it was a dream of theirs since they were children.
“We spent 17 years building up this music school from scratch. Myself and Jean, we started with two pianos and ended up with a premises.
“And we were able to extend the premises, start as a music school, extend it into a stage school and we were able to hire staff.
“Like, it’s been a dream of ours since we were children and that was our second home.
“It wasn’t just our job, we just loved it, it was our music school, it was our place and it’s just gone.”
Between the stage school and the music school, they had between 150 and 160 students.
Jean said they have no idea when they can open again because everything has been destroyed.
“With regards opening, we don’t know. I’d love to tell you we can open next week but we have nothing.
“All of our instruments are gone, the building was gutted, completely gutted by fire and anything that mightn’t have been destroyed by fire has been water damaged.
“My partner Paul works in the school and Ellenor’s husband Ciarán also works in the school so our two homes are without income at the moment.”
Ellenor appealed to the Government to “just give us some kind of light”, “some kind of help, some light in this darkness because it’s unbearable”.
‘Too much stuff to replace’
The co-founder of NoMac Productions, one of the dozens of businesses severely impacted by a fire at a business centre in Waterford city, has said she does not believe her business will reopen following the blaze.
Blánaid MacCann said the business, which hires out costumes to theatres, films and musicals across Ireland, could have as many as 50,000 costumes stored at the premises – with some dating back to 1921.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with David McCullagh, Ms MacCann said: “I don’t think it will be possible to restart the business, even though I love it.
“Because even if the costumes aren’t completely destroyed, they will be badly damaged by water and smoke.”
“There’s too much stuff there to replace,” she said, “you just couldn’t”.
“I think I have run my course on that now. Unfortunately, I mean, I love the business, but you couldn’t get the styles, the vintage for all the productions we do across the board. They’re all so different.”
She explained that she has not seen the premises in person, but believes it was very badly damaged and the roof is gone.
“I haven’t got any great information at the moment, because all day yesterday, it was in the hands of the fire chief,” she said.
“It was devastating to see the flames fly up into the sky on Saturday night,” she added.
Watch: Drone footage shows aftermath of fire in Waterford city
‘It’s just ash, there’s nothing left’
The owner of DG Foods described the site as “all ash”, and “complete dust”.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Andrew Hepburn said his family-run business has been operating out of the Tycor facility for 20 years and has 13 employees.
“It’s just ash, there’s nothing left. Skeleton frames of racking, forklift completely burnt out, freezer gone. It’s just complete dust.
“It’s like a big bonfire at Halloween, what’s left embers”.
He said that as his food business has a second location, it can continue, but all the stock in the Tycor facility has been destroyed.
“It’s devastating”, he said, “within minutes it was gone”.
Mr Hepburn said he cannot yet put a value on the loss, but he hopes that the Government will give financial support to businesses.
Humanitarian assistance to be set up
Meanwhile, Minister of State Mary Butler said she hopes humanitarian assistance will be available quickly for those impacted by the fire.
Ms Butler said she spoke with the Taoiseach yesterday and said Micheál Martin confirmed that a humanitarian scheme will be set up, similar to those implemented when areas are impacted by flooding.
She said she also spoke with Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke and Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary.
Ms Butler said it will take some businesses a few days to assess the extent of damage to their properties.
“We’re dependent on drone footage, but the smoke damage will be massive, even if there wasn’t damage from the fire impact,” the Fianna Fáil TD for Waterford said.
Efforts are also under way to see what immediate steps can be taken to provide services to clients of a day service, she said.
The service provides help for up to 30 people with high dependent needs.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
