A daily glance at the top 10 Charleston stories of 2008. Look for the entire list in this week’s Charleston City Paper.
3. Sofa Store Fallout
The June 2007 blaze that killed nine Charleston firefighters left much to be resolved in 2008. Critics had suggested that the fire department was partly to blame for the fatalities, but it wasn’t until days before a report from an independent investigation in May that Charleston Fire Chief Rusty Thomas announced his plans to resign. The report that followed cited failures in staffing, training, and equipment at the department, as well as a careless, cavalier attitude toward fighting fires. Thomas was replaced by Thomas Carr, a Maryland fire chief.
In 2009: The Charleston Police Department has only recently handed over its finding to the county solicitor for a possible criminal case, while several civil cases brought by the families of the firefighters work their way through the court system.
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