Witness recalls life at Ghost Ship

Ex-resident, fire survivor says warehouse suffered frequent power outages

Power outages frequently darkened the Ghost Ship warehouse during the two years before a fire killed 36 partygoers, a witness and former resident of the artists collaborative told an Alameda County court Thursday.

Jose Avalos, a woodworker who moved into the Ghost Ship two years before the Dec. 2, 2016, blaze, said warehouse residents would enter the auto body shop next door to reset the breaker whenever the power went out.

“There was a long period of time we didn’t have steady power,” Avalos said during the second day of a preliminary hearing in Alameda County Superior Court. “We had to be careful. There were times it happened day after day. Sometimes it’d be like once a week.”

Authorities were unable to determine what started the deadly fire that trapped concert-goers — many of them on the second floor — of the twostory warehouse, which was not permitted to serve as a residence or performance venue.

Judge Jeffrey Horner will decide whether the prosecution’s evidence in the involuntary manslaughter case against Derick Almena, 47, and Max Harris, 27, is sufficient to go to trial. Both men appeared in court wearing red county jail jumpsuits seated next to their attorneys.

Curtis Briggs, an attorney representing Harris, asked Avalos if he ever felt unsafe in the Ghost Ship, which was also known as Satya Yuga.

“With all these power out-

ages, you never felt like Satya Yuga was in danger of going up in flames?” Briggs asked. “No,” Avalos said. Another witness and former resident of Ghost Ship, Nicolas “Nico” Bouchard, said he had a falling out with Almena, whom he said laughed off Bouchard’s safety concerns about the place. He also said Almena’s attitude changed after he began to “heavily” use methamphetamines.

Another witness and former warehouse resident pushed back as prosecutors tried to pin her down on who was in charge of the warehouse.

“We didn’t have an ‘in charge,’ ” Leah Danielle Vega said. “We had a collective. We all did our best.”

Vega said she stayed at Ghost Ship when she had nowhere else to go.

“The building was not intended for humans,” Vega said. “It was like a stone hut or something.”

Prosecutors say Almena and Harris were primarily responsible for the warehouse. Almena, the master tenant, sublet areas in the space for between $350 to $1,400, according to a probable cause declaration. Harris collected rent from the residents, and prosecutors said he rented the second floor of the warehouse for the electronic music concert the night of the fire.

Although Harris collected the rent, Avalos and defense attorneys said he was incorrectly portrayed as “second in command” to Almena.

A point of contention remains whether Harris purposely set up amplifiers to block the way to Almena’s room — inadvertently blocking some access to back stairs — as prosecutors allege. A second set of narrow wooden stairs in the building crafted by Almena could only be descended in single file.

The warehouse violated several rules under the California Fire Code: lacking adequate firesuppression systems, smoke alarms, exit signs and sprinklers, according to prosecutors. Almena is accused of fostering an environment in which highly flammable materials were welcomed building materials. Both he and Harris remodeled the warehouse without going through proper inspection and permitting procedures, prosecutors allege.

The defense has sought to portray the warehouse as an affordable space for artists to be accepted amid the rising rents in Oakland. In the event’s aftermath, the Fire Department came under scrutiny when records revealed that for two years officials did not adequately respond to repeated complaints and calls for service at the warehouse.

Defense attorneys have argued that the criminal case targeted their defendants in lieu of other culpable figures with greater means.

Testimony in the hearing resumes Monday.