Nederland business owners are still figuring out how to move forward in the aftermath of a fire that engulfed the Caribou Village Shopping Center early Thursday morning.
“My entire existence at this point is in that place, and I just don't know what I'm going to do,” said Tim Dumke, the owner of a laundromat that burned down. “This shopping center has pretty much been what felt like home for the entire time. I've lived here for going on almost 20 years now.”
As of Friday, Dumke didn’t know the full extent of the damage. Like some, he wasn’t in town when the fire happened. He arrived just as Gov. Jared Polis and officials made statements to the media about what comes next.
“We literally just got up here right now to this press conference, so this is the first time I'm actually seeing this for myself,” he said. “It's a little tough to see what transpired here in the two days we were gone. Tres Gringos (a Mexican restaurant) is owned by our best friends. We know they just got married last weekend. And to have to come home to this after a wedding weekend — I can't even imagine how devastating that must be for them.”
On Friday, the air still smelled like smoke, and ash covered the parking lot of the shopping center. The majority of the two-story structure was hollowed out and unrecognizable. On Friday, community members and small business owners assessed the damage done to their neighbors and the effect on the local economy. The shopping center was a crucial economic hub for the town of 1,500 people.
“It's devastating. Knowing all these people and all of the love and work they've put into all their local businesses, it's really sad to see it gone, said Melody Baumhover, the executive director at Carousel of Happiness, a local business known by many tourists that sits adjacent to Caribou Village and survived the blaze. Baumhover said the building suffered some charring on one side and impacts to exterior windows. “It’s something that's going to affect everyone in our community, even if they didn't lose a business.”
“It's heartbreaking for all these people. It's heartbreaking for our small community that has a giant heart,” said Kathy McCalib, the manager of a business across town. “I think speaking for myself and probably most every other resident here, we really just want to help in any way we can.”
“I'm hoping they're going to rebuild. It will be quite a project, but this community lost half of its business market, so I think it's really important that it's rebuilt,” said McCalib.
Mayor Billy Giblin said although there is limited space within the town, he’s looking into multiple avenues to help people keep running their businesses. Some options include bringing in temporary buildings to set up in the shopping center’s parking lot or moving businesses to different buildings.
“We can streamline any processes with permitting to rebuild or any steps along the way,” Giblin added. “We're going to have to look at some emergency rezoning of things too to make it so that there aren’t any obstacles.”
Gov. Jared Polis and Congressman Neguse were on the ground Friday assessing the damage.
“It is hard to overstate the impact that this tragedy has had and will have on this community in the days and weeks and months ahead,” Neguse said.
“There's probably about 60, 70, 80 people whose livelihood was connected to this site. Some of them were the owners of the small businesses; others were employees,” Polis said. “We want to make sure they're seamlessly able to access their unemployment insurance.”
The cause of the fire is currently under investigation by local law enforcement as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The ATF agents are working through the government shutdown without pay.
The process of planning and rebuilding will start next.
“This will be rebuilt,” Polis said.
On Sunday, in a first step towards normalcy, the grocery store next to the burned shopping plaza reopened.
Giblin also reflected on what could be learned for the future.
“We need to be ready to evacuate and also work to better harden our community for wildfire and fires,” he said. “Great city fires all started in one building.”
There is a GoFundMe up right now to support impacted business owners and employees. The fundraiser has already surpassed its $150,000 goal.
