A building fire at 28 Center St. on Monday, Mar. 2 was sparked by what Wilton fire officials called “errant electricity.” But Marie Wendorf, the owner of Witchy Poo, an accessories store located on the lower level in the back of the building–who was inside the building when the wiring caught fire and notified the Wilton Fire Department–says she’s lucky to be alive.
“[Afterward, the firefighter], when he brought me back into the building, he said, ‘If you did not call when you called, and if we did not get here when we got here, this whole thing would have been like a chimney, and the building would have just gone…” Wendorf snaps her fingers, “…like that fast. Timing was everything.”
Remarkably, she’s maintained her “glass-half-full” attitude about life, and says this: “I’m lucky. Really, really lucky.”
Wendorf recounts how quickly the episode unfolded Monday afternoon, around 3 p.m.
“I had just gotten tea at CT Coffee, and came back to the store. I was sitting down texting my daughter, and on my computer, when I notice the lights start flickering around me. I hear, ‘snap, snap, snap.’ And then I smelled the smoke. I grabbed my computer and phone and ran outside,” Wendorf recounts.
Given the experience, it’s surprising how calm Wendorf is retelling the whole story, as she describes running outside, finding very few people around to help warn others in the building or to call for help–as well as finding the live wire lying across the driveway entrance to Old Post Office Square, where Witchy Poo is located.
“I see there’s this old, archaic wire that had been attached to building, ripped off and thrown down. Then there’s the live wire laying across the street. I think the whole building is going to go on fire and all these cars are going to drive across it. All I’m thinking is there’s no one to direct traffic, it was a really scary moment,” she says as she described how cars were coming from multiple directions at one of the busiest intersections in town.
After calling 9-1-1 and trying to stop people from driving over the wire, Wendorf tried to keep calm until firefighters arrived. But she says one thing did occur do her as she was waiting for help to get there.
“The fire alarms didn’t make a sound. There was no fire alarm that went off,” she says.
Handling the Fire
Wilton’s Assistant Fire Chief Mark Amatrudo was on the scene with the fire crew handling the emergency Monday afternoon.
“There was a failure at the connection where the power line comes into the building. As a result of that the power line and the service on the side of the building came down,” he explained. The line that broke off the building was the neutral grounding line, which caused the power coming in to transfer over to the low-voltage cable wiring.
“That caused things to catch on fire,” Amatrudo said. “The result was it sent electrical current through the building. When you have that much electricity going through that small of a wire that’s not designed to carry it, you had that wire melting and catching fire through a number of places in the building.”
There were several small fires throughout the building, Amatrudo said, until Eversource cut the power. Up until then, there was a live wire on the street and “live power working it’s way through the building.” Firefighters closed off the street until the situation was under control.
As of Tuesday it wasn’t clear why the failure happened, but more likely than not, says Amatrudo, it was due to a combination of the wind and the age of the equipment on the building.
He said when firefighters arrived on site, there was light smoke throughout the building and the smell of the cable burning. He said that there was enough time to evacuate the building, but “if Eversource didn’t get there quickly, then we would have had a much bigger problem on our hands. In all likelihood it would have resulted in a significant fire in the building.”
While Amatrudo said he didn’t know what alarm system was in use at the building, he confirmed something Wendorf said: “On our arrival there was no audible or visible fire alarm.”
Amatrudo said he didn’t know when the last time was the building was inspected, and the fire marshal was unavailable by press time.
Coping with the Aftermath
Wendorf isn’t sure she’s going to go back into the space that Witchy Poo has occupied on the historic building’s lower level for the last eight years. Higgins Group Real Estate is on the building’s main level, and there is an apartment with tenants who live on the top floor.
Even though Eversource Electric has reconnected a wire to the building, there has not been an electrician to fix the wiring or rewire the building, nor has the building been inspected to make sure that it can be occupied, says Wendorf. Since there is currently no electric power in the building, there is no heat. Wendorf is concerned the pipes will freeze and burst, causing significant damage.
As a result, she had most of her store’s product and inventory removed from the location. “I’m afraid my luck is going to run out, so I just have to get my stuff out of here,” she says.
The fire and resulting power loss is the latest event in a series of problems in the building. Two weeks ago, Wendorf says the oil ran out and had to be filled with an emergency call to the fuel provider after the building lost heat.
After that was remedied, Wendorf says the building’s pipes froze, and despite her requests, the building’s owner didn’t call a plumber to repair the problem. Instead, according to Wendorf, he rigged an electrical heater and heat lamp to pipes located in an exterior utility shed. The pipes eventually thawed last week, but there was some interior flooding from a tap left open in the apartment on the top floor once water service was restored.
![The [electrical] heating lamps previously used to keep pipes warm--but which can't work without electric power to the building.](https://i0.wp.com/goodmorningwilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IMG_3928.jpg?w=278&h=371&ssl=1 "IMG_3928")
Following Monday’s fire and resulting loss of heat, Wendorf has asked for the pipes to be drained, in hopes that would prevent any additional water damage. However, she says the landlord hasn’t done that. “They didn’t burst last time, the heat was on in the building. The lamps heating the pipes aren’t working, with no electricity,” she says, adding that she doesn’t know when things will be remedied.
“I don’t now how long this will last. So I’m emptying my store. If I lose inventory, every necklace is money that’s just sitting here. I have three kids to feed, and I can’t afford not to be working,” Wendorf says.
Editor’s note: GMW placed calls to the building owner, but we were told he was not in. As of press time, we did not reach him for comment about plans to repair the current damage.
Wendorf plans to go mobile with her business, setting up “pop-up” retail locations around Wilton, with the help of other retailers. “That’s what I did before [having the store] and that’s what I continued to do.” Of course, even through her resourcefulness, potentially giving up the space makes her sad, especially knowing her shopping base is populated with many Wilton teens. “It’s been a refuge for me for a long time, and it’s a really secure place for kids in town who come there. They get picked up there, it’s a meeting point, they try on different things.”
She’s already hearing from her neighbors and other members of the Wilton community. The owners of Steven Mancini have offered Wendorf the opportunity to set up in their salon on Saturday from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.. CT Coffee will hang signs to let people know when and where her shows will be. She’s also gotten offers of help from Signature Style, B Chic, Susan Schmitt of The Painted Cookie, Faith Filiault and realtors Carol McMorris (Higgins Group) and Lynn Murphy (Realty Seven), and says that Kelly Healy from Open House Gift Shop has been “tremendous.”
“I feel truly blessed to be in a community of so much support,” Wendorf says, adding that people can also shop 24-7 at shopwitchypoo.com and find out about her daily deals on the Witchy Poo Facebook page.
Remarkably, Wendorf says she’s still looking at everything that has happened with some positivity.
“It could have been so much worse. It’s just stuff, it’s just a store, it’s just a building. At the end of the day, it’s lives that count. Nobody got hurt. Merchandise can be replaced, a building could be rebuilt. It could have been horrific. All I was thinking running up to that street was, ‘This is going to be bad.’ Thank God it wasn’t.”
Below is video Wendorf posted on her YouTube channel and Facebook page, recounting what happened. Her remarkably upbeat tone shows her outlook, which is incredibly positive, given what she’s gone through.
