We were finally contacted by the new asbestos testing and remediation planning company hired by the owner of the building. Under Colorado law, a separate company registered to test asbestos must do the initial work of establishing it’s presence and lay out the requirements for a second company to remove the material. Yet a third company will do the restoration of the building and prepare it for occupancy.
This new testing company has assured us that we will be contacted as soon as a certified removal company is selected. While the owner of this company could not be sure of the timing, he guessed that it would take about 10 days to make the selection of the removal company who would then let us know their plan and the cost to recover the inventory. I believe it may well be longer than that. It is hard to understand the complexity of this process but it is under the regulatory authority of four or five different state and federal agencies.
The city and county of Aurora Colorado is apparently moving very carefully. After the tragedy of the shooting at the mall theater here, the city is reluctant to make decisions that may be subject to future lawsuits. That and the hassle associated with governmental regulation at all levels have meant the everything has to be checked and approved more than a few times.
We have attached two other samples from the Soviet and Axis OBs that allow players to leave off the war in Finland to save space and speed the main front play.
Later this week we were finally able to speak with the building owner. He had been waiting for the promised news as well. A new testing company has been brought in to retest the building. They are expected to be finished late next week. The owner believes that this new company will then give us a plan to recover some of our material. My own guess is that this would only include sealed and undamaged boxes. As the photos show, we have a significant number of sealed boxes of Total War components and shrink-wrapped earlier games.
We will be working with the testing company or asbestos removal firm (they can not be the same companies under Colorado law) to get the clean-up procedures, cost and what certifications that would be address our inventory. We have been told that the procedures range from a simple vacuuming in place to a very elaborate, multiple clean room, multiple vacuum, wipe and transfer to a second clean room procedure. Cost certainly goes along with how much work is mandated. The high volume vacuum may not be useable on the stacks of exposed counters since it would probably pull the die-cut counters out of their frames. However, there are over 1,000 sets of counters still in unopened boxes.
We will post news as soon as we can confirm what it is the official position and that/when we can move ahead.
Here are the first three pages of the Soviet OB:
We received a call yesterday from the owner of the designated restoration company. The previous plan they gave us for removal and cleanup has been withdrawn. The former head of the restoration project is, “no longer with the company”. This may very possibly be due to his work with us and the bid he put together. The state group that oversees asbestos removal was angry with the company for letting anyone in the building. Apparently neither the company nor it’s project lead was certified to work with asbestos. We are now promised news next week as to what can be done about the building contents.
We have pushed to get news and a plan for access to the inventory and now find that this may be creating disputes between agencies. We will have to await news as it is given to us. None of the storage in the building could be realistically insured. Quotes for insurance started at $1300 a month (Allstate). One of the criteria we looked for in storage space was an absence of automatically activated sprinklers. Our products are all paper based. Sprinklers could have damaged our inventory more completely than most fires and accidental activation of sprinklers occur more often than fires. All of our new game components, older games and magazines are in the building as well as our company files.
As most of our customers may have guessed, we must operate on a very small budget margin after the four year law suit removed our promised operating capital and most later financing options. We elected to press on with the development of the games with the help of secured loans. We have not had the option to pay for accelerated printing options, guarantees, salaries or even occasionally, living arrangements. This is something of a tradition with GRD and Europa. In spite of this, we believe we have produced a game worthy of the line. As soon as we know how many copes of the game are intact and can be mailed, we will order the number of rules, OBs and charts need to complete those games. We are using this enforced break to review the rules, OBs and chart files yet again and to continue work on A Winter War II and Turning Point.
We were finally permitted a second brief access to the building with the restoration project leader as a guide. As you can see, most of the inventory in storage is intact with little visible damage. The building itself was badly damaged. The arsonist apparently poured gasoline in front of each door on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors.
Here are a few photos:
Night of the Fire.
Front of the building the next day.
Light damage in one room, more than a week after fire.
Severe damage on the second floor.
Building from inside of new fence.
Arthur and restoration team leader in one room
Our priority since the night of the fire has been to get Arthur and
Jason relocated and to track down who is in charge of giving the
go-ahead for entry and removal of the inventory stored at the building.
Arthur had been working at my house and Jason qualified for student
housing at the university he is attending.
The last several weeks have seen very little information on who can give
approval for re-entry. The building was a crime scene so the fire and
police investigators were initial involved. Part of this was finally
concluded with a finding of arson. A mental health patient was taken
into custody and is undergoing evaluation. The police have had very
little comment.
The building was initially tested by the health authorities and found to
have asbestos in parts the building as a result of damage caused by the
fire and the fire department’s efforts. It was declared a health hazard
and no one was allowed to re-enter the building. A fence is erected
around the building, the windows are boarded and health warnings placed
on the walls. I am told that the testing continues.
Arthur and I did finally get into the building this week. We were
gowned, wearing respirators and lead by the restoration group’s project
leader. The storage was as reported before, without water damage and
only a few component stacks obviously damaged but we were unable to do a
detailed evaluation. There was some smoke damage in the rooms.
The restoration company has given us an estimate of what it will cost to
clean our material if that is mandated. Apparently it is very difficult
and expensive to clean any smoke smell from paper. The smoke may not
have affected the game materials still in sealed boxes. There may be a
problem with Colorado law as well but we have attorneys looking into it.
It breaks my heart to see all of the counters, maps and boxes sitting
untouched. All of our other inventory as well as all of the packing and
shipping materials we had made ready, are in the same place. We have
been told by the restoration group, the building owner and two state
groups that we should be given final word within two weeks as to the
status of the building.
We have two printing companies ready to print the final components as
soon as we can determine how many complete games can be removed intact.
