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“It was surreal, hard to believe the horror unfolding,” Bay Area party promoter and record label owner Nihar Bhatt told the East Bay Express.
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“The overwhelming feeling was of complete powerlessness."
Bhatt was on the scene when the deadliest incident to occur in Oakland since 1989 engulfed some of the city’s most prominent artists in flames.
During a party Friday night, a fire broke out close to midnight in the warehouse that is home to the artist collective space known as Ghost Ship. According to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, 24 people were confirmed dead Sunday as bodies were pulled from the burnt warehouse ruins, but the death toll is expected to rise, with fears that as many as 30 or 40 could be dead.
One of the artists who lived in the building, photographer Bob Mule, told the East Bay Times he attempted, but ultimately failed, to get a friend out from the fire.
"I literally felt my skin peeling and my lungs being suffocated by smoke," he said. "I couldn't get the fire extinguisher to work."
Bhatt said that many of those still missing are not only prominent in the local artist scene, but are mostly transgender people and people of color.
One such person is Chelsea Faith, a big name in the local underground electronic scene who Bhatt described as the “key link between the Nineties rave scene and a new generation of producers, including myself, who consider her a mentor.”
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Bhatt and his friend Butler, a local musician who was also at the party, told media that the local underground music scene isn’t to blame and that the counterculture community often gravitates towards potentially unsafe and “illegal” venues because of the housing crisis in Oakland and the surrounding Bay Area.
They explained that these non-permitted residences that often host underground shows are sometimes the only safe place for marginalized people when mainstream, sanctioned venues are hostile or inhospitable.
“We need spaces that are open to folks who are beaten down and oppressed by living daily under patriarchy and white supremacy,” Butler said.
“Last night had the potential to be incredible.”
Bhatt, however, did admit that “several people told (him) before this that they were thinking of calling out (Ghost Ship) for being unsafe, for being a fire hazard.”
But he also made clear that a crackdown on the city’s underground scene isn’t the solution.
“If people think by punishing spaces it will make potentially unsafe underground venues go away, they’re wrong,” he said. “The trouble is the lack of spaces to begin with. Places that are safe and also somewhat unscripted are necessary.
"Otherwise, this will happen again.”
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