COLUMBUS (WCMH) – It’s been over three weeks since the Dick Cold Storage warehouse caught fire and people who live nearby say the smell of rotting meat is worse than ever.
Instead of “Westgate” some residents are now calling the area “Hamgate”. The City of Columbus says 70 refrigerated semi-trailers storing ham were damaged in the fire that happened on August 19.
Today, neighbors want to know why it’s taking so long to get the mess cleaned up.
“I’m out here to protest the stench,” says Gary Hicks, wearing a gas mask. “The rats were getting ready to run across the street into our homes.”
Hicks has been out walking along Valleyview Drive, outside Dick Cold Storage with his gas mask on since 7 this morning.
“Smells like dead people, rotten, moldy dead people,” he says.
Hicks says he’s already thrown up once, after taking his mask off.
“There should be citations being written. There should be something being done,” he says.
The City of Columbus says it’s the responsibility of the property owners to clean up the mess, but they’re working with them and monitoring the site to make sure it gets done. The city says the property owners have hired crews to remove the perishables, but it’s a long-process of separating fire-burned debris and food.
The Department of Development’s Code Enforcement Division says demolition of the facility is progressing and crews are still finding food debris.
“You wake up in the middle of the night and you can smell it in your bedroom,” says neighbor Tamara Wilhelm-Sexton.
She says it’s not getting cleaned up fast enough and that there’s really no place to escape the stench.
“We can’t get away from it. It’s in our basement. It’s running our air-conditioning system,” she says. “I came out yesterday morning and it was so heavy in the air that I puked. I totally got sick.”
Ashley Furbee lives nearby and her kids also go to Valleyview Elementary School just down the street from where the stench is coming from.
“Being that they are one of the schools I don’t have air conditioning, I just worry about how they can learn with the stench,” she says.
Louis Samson says the smell is so bad his wife and kids keep getting sick. He says they have flies and rats now, when they didn’t used to.
“There used to be a place where they cremated pets that smelled better than this does,” he says. “The smell even starts coming up through the sewer system, especially if it’s raining.”
“Dick Cold Storage” has not returned our calls, so there’s no time line as to how long the stench will linger or when the clean-up will be finished.
The city says they’ve already sprayed for flies and mosquitoes.
Columbus Public Health says the property owners have agreed to hire a contractor to control the rat problem.
The EPA is also monitoring the situation for any chemical spills or other hazards.
