Easton council pursues occupancy-list ordinance, Met-Ed investigation in wake of Hotel Hampton fire

EASTON, Pa. — Easton City Council moved Wednesday night toward drafting an ordinance that would require apartment buildings and rooming houses to maintain digital occupancy lists with the city, a direct response to the chaos firefighters faced trying to account for residents during last week’s devastating Hotel Hampton fire.

Councilman Frank Pintabone, the council’s vice mayor, told the council he is working with City Solicitor Joel Scheer on the measure after emergency responders were unable to determine how many people were inside the five-story rooming house at 462 Northampton St. when the three-alarm blaze broke out the morning of Feb. 20.

“This is the second fire where our fire chief and our fire department are asking how many people are occupied — they didn’t know,” Pintabone said during the meeting, referencing a prior fire at the nearby Hotel Lafayette. “The occupancy list was in the building.”

The Feb. 25 council meeting provided the most detailed public accounting yet of the city’s response to the fire, which destroyed the century-old rooming house, spread to two adjoining properties and displaced at least 65 people — 40 from the Hampton itself and roughly 25 from surrounding buildings.

Injured firefighter discharged, recovering at home

Community Advocate Kristen Cooper, who works out of the Easton Police Department, told council she spoke with Fire Chief Henry Hennings earlier Wednesday and confirmed that Bobby Lewullis, the Wilson Borough firefighter critically injured in the blaze, has been discharged from St. Luke’s Hospital-Anderson Campus and is recovering at home.

Lewullis, a career firefighter and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, fell roughly 20 feet from a ladder on Feb. 20 after declaring a Mayday when he ran out of air on the third floor while searching for trapped residents. He was initially admitted to the ICU with multiple fractures, including to his back.

“He knows that he’s in everyone’s thoughts and prayers right now — not just in Easton but in the Lehigh Valley,” Cooper said. She added that she has seen numerous fundraisers emerging to support him.

A “Fill the Boot for Bobby” fundraiser is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 27, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Pints & Pies Neighborhood Pub, 2049 Northampton St., Wilson.

35 remain in shelter; multi-agency resource center opens this weekend

Cooper reported that all 40 displaced Hampton residents have been identified and connected with services — a significant milestone given that in the days after the fire, officials could not confirm whether everyone had escaped the building.

K-9 units searched the debris, and the Northampton County coroner was on scene as a precaution before all residents were ultimately accounted for. No deaths have been reported.

As of Wednesday, 35 people were staying at a Red Cross shelter that has been relocated from Paxinosa Elementary School to Alumni Hall at Northampton Community College.

A multi-agency resource center will open Friday from 3 to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Gallery at the State Theatre Center for the Arts, 453 Northampton St.

The center will offer help replacing documents such as driver’s licenses and birth certificates, housing services, legal assistance from North Penn Legal Services, and connections to county and state agencies.

A Spanish-speaking interpreter will also be available.

Cooper and Officer Jeff Crosson — the department’s bicycle patrol officer and 2024 Officer of the Year — have been visiting the shelter daily since the fire.

Council members detail displaced population

Councilwoman Julie Zando-Dennis, who has been visiting the shelter regularly alongside Graziano and a group of volunteers, offered the council a detailed portrait of the displaced residents, pushing back against stigma she observed on social media.

“I did see one post in the aftermath of the fire that just said, ‘Well, you know, so what, they’re addicts,'” Zando-Dennis said.

She described the shelter population as including residents over 65 on limited Social Security, people with physical and mental health disabilities, working adults with low-income jobs, a woman who is seven months pregnant, and a young adult she said “really shouldn’t have been at an SRO in the first place.”

“Of all of those, there’s only one person that I’m aware of who has a substance abuse problem,” Zando-Dennis said. “He came right up to me and said, ‘I want to go into rehab.'”

Council to confront Met-Ed over delayed power shutoff

Vice Mayor Pintabone told council that city officials plan to demand a meeting with Met-Ed to explain why power was not disconnected promptly during the fire — a failure first disclosed by Chief Hennings at a news conference Feb. 21.

In a phone interview Thursday, Pintabone provided a detailed timeline of the breakdown. He said Chief Hennings took command of the scene at approximately 10:50 a.m. and called 911 dispatch at 11:04 a.m. to request that Met-Ed cut power to the building.

Dispatch responded at 11:07 a.m., indicating the power was being shut down, and Met-Ed subsequently told the fire department the power was off, Pintabone said.

But it wasn’t.

“Our firefighters are doing what they’re supposed to do, and then we hear that a firefighter is getting tingling,” Pintabone said. “And the ladders were energized. So we knew the power wasn’t off.”

Power was not actually disconnected until approximately 2 p.m. — nearly three hours after Met-Ed reportedly confirmed it had been cut, Pintabone said.

He described the danger in blunt terms: “If our firefighters had gotten one foot off the ladder, one on the ground, one on the ladder, they’d be dead.”

At Wednesday’s council meeting, City Administrator Luis Campos confirmed that a fire truck had been positioned on a manhole covering an energized power switch, requiring what he described as “a more forceful turning off of the power.”

The roughly two-hour downtown blackout affected about 3,500 customers, including Lafayette College.

Pintabone said the meeting with Met-Ed officials will likely take place next week and will include the mayor and fire chief. “We’re going to find out what went wrong and ensure that it never happens again to any fire department,” Pintabone said.

He said he was not aware of an incident like this — where a utility confirmed a power shutoff that had not actually occurred — happening in Easton previously.

Rooming house exemption raises questions

The proposed occupancy ordinance may face a wrinkle. Solicitor Scheer noted during the meeting that under Easton’s existing landlord registration requirements, landlords are already required to provide occupancy lists to the city, in part to track per capita tax obligations.

But the Hotel Hampton, classified as a rooming house rather than a traditional landlord-tenant property, may have been operating under different reporting requirements.

“I’m very curious as to why the Hampton has run differently than any other landlord-tenant as far as keeping track of occupants,” Scheer said.

Pintabone noted the same problem arose during the Lafayette Hotel fire. “The owner told us that he told me that he had 35 or 40,” Pintabone said, but officials had no verified count.

Disaster declaration signed; city reviews emergency procedures

Campos told the council he signed a disaster declaration on behalf of Mayor Panto, who was traveling when the fire broke out, to unlock county, state, and potential federal assistance, including SBA resources for affected businesses.

Pintabone served as acting chair for any council business during the mayor’s absence.

Campos said the administration is reviewing its emergency procedures in light of the fire and the compounding downtown power outage. He noted that City Hall remained open during the blackout and that city employees continued serving the public.

“We did learn a lot from this fire — more than just the fire, since the power outage affected the downtown,” Campos said. “That’s something to be discussed.”

He added that the city is better prepared for large-scale fires than it was before the Ferry Street fire of May 2023, which led to a multi-agency case study and the expansion of Cooper’s community advocate role.

Community response and upcoming events

Multiple council members praised the community’s response in the aftermath of the fire. Clothing and supply drives were held at Paxinosa Elementary, Platinum Star Cleaning and House Plant in the Easton Public Market within 24 hours of the blaze.

Easton Main Street Initiative is hosting a “Walk Up the Block” party Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. on the 400 block of Northampton Street to support businesses impacted by the fire, including 2nd Base Vintage, Home Towne Pet Shoppe, Angel’s House of Design, Homegrown Cafe and others.

The United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley has launched the “Easton Fire Fund” to support long-term recovery.

Donations can be made at www.unitedwayglv.org/donate by selecting “Fire Fund” or by texting “REBUILD” to 40403. Anyone in need of Red Cross assistance should call 1-800-733-2767.

Councilwoman Hartranft-Bittinger also thanked the Easton Area School District for hosting the initial shelter at Paxinosa and Northampton Community College for providing its Alumni Hall facility.

A resident who identified himself as Luke, who lives on the 400 block of North Hampton Street, urged the council to invest in public housing now that the city has lost its rooming house.

“We are now down our rooming house, and so therefore as a body we need to look at options for public housing,” he said.

Mayor Panto acknowledged that the city discussed the need for another single-room occupancy facility at a staff meeting earlier that day.

The cause of the fire, which started in the basement, remains under investigation. Pintabone confirmed in a phone interview Thursday that no official cause has been determined.