ORLANDO, Fla. — 9 Investigates found discrepancies in a report about the exits of Pulse nightclub.
An Orlando Fire Department spokeswoman said the club’s exits were not blocked the night of the shooting, and that they were operational.
Pulse’s lawyers said the same thing, and said that Pulse has more fire exits than required.
But the city is still working to find documentation for Channel 9 that the inconsistencies in a May inspection report were the result of a firefighter’s error.
An Orlando Fire Department engineer’s report from May 21, three weeks before the terror attack, shows on one page that an exit door or hardware was inoperable, and a fire extinguisher was not hanging by a door as it should have been.
A second document, dated in early June, shows some doors were inoperable.
A fire department spokesperson and Pulse’s lawyer said that was not true, and that the fire engineer checked the wrong box.
They said the engineer meant to check a box indicating an emergency exit light was inoperable.
Neither the city nor Pulse’s lawyer could provide any documentation showing that it was a firefighter’s error, and the section of the report where details are to be documented is blank.
The spokesperson said that if an exit was in fact inoperable or blocked, that the firefighters performing the exit checks would not have left the club until the problem was resolved, because it poses a life safety hazard.
The records also show texts between the city fire marshal and fire chief about a photo taken by a city code enforcement officer, showing a soda machine lying on the ground outside the club.
Fire Marshal Tammy Hughes texted, “Code Enforcement is here. Showed me a picture where the club owner had blocked the exit with a Coke machine. He has pictures.”
The fire chief responded, “OK, how many exits blocked?”
She responded, “Maybe one or two.”
But the spokeswoman said Wednesday the machine was not blocking any exits.
The city is working to track down the documentation.
Cox Media Group
