The search for a missing restaurant owner inside the fragile shell of Fairhaven’s burned-out Terminal Building is likely to stretch into next week, even as slow progress in searching the gutted Bellingham structure continued all day Saturday, Dec. 23.
With more demolition work on the fragile outer shell of the building scheduled for Sunday, and Christmas Day serving as a day off for workers, further intense searching of the inside of the structure is likely to be delayed until Tuesday, Dec. 26, Bellingham Fire Chief Bill Hewett told Cascadia Daily News Saturday night.
Workers continued to attempt to sift through a mountain of debris from the collapsed upper floor inside the historic, two-story structure to avoid disturbing evidence of the fire’s cause, or interfering with the investigation of a presumed fatality.
Restaurant owner Nate Breaux, 39, has been missing since the Dec. 16 fire. His family believes his body remains inside the building, they said in a Thursday, Dec. 21 statement. Breaux was the owner of the building’s two main floor businesses, Harris Avenue Cafe and the Old Independent Coffeehouse.
Additional demolition work on Sunday should open up another avenue to access the inside of the building, Hewett said.
Dozens of workers from Bellingham police and fire, as well as state agencies and fire inspection experts from other jurisdictions, worked the problem of attempting to remove debris from the fragile structure throughout the day on Saturday. Several search dogs were also brought into the jumbled debris inside the building on Saturday.
This story will be updated if additional information becomes available.
