When Abby and Rick Hess, managers of the White Birch Inn in Sturgeon Bay, heard about a fire at Butch's Bar this morning, they immediately got a hold of their employee, Gary McCoy, who they knew lived above Butch's.
“We knew he had no place else to stay at, and probably had nothing but the clothes he had on," said Rick. "Which was just literally a pair of pants and boots."
"He didn't even have a shirt when he got out this morning, he said," added Abby.
The managers told McCoy he could stay at the Inn, and they asked the community to help out.
“We've already had two people drop off things, numerous people calling asking what else he could use," said Abby. "It's been wonderful.”
The Inn’s dishwasher said his father, who lived right down the hall, wasn’t as quick to escape; Gary McCoy senior has serious burns and was transported to a burn unit at a Milwaukee hospital. The two are very close, said Abby.
“I think he'd be lost without his dad," she said.
Eli Phillips, who lives across the street from the Sturgeon Bay Fire Department, woke up before 4 a.m. this morning to the sound of sirens.
“When I went outside, there was a lot of commotion," he said. "It’s Door County. That normally doesn't happen. So we looked outside the window, and I see the fire going on in Butch’s. I got some pictures just to remember the moment, and it's sad. It was fully engulfed at that time.”
Phillips knew multiple people living in the building above Butch’s Bar personally.
“The one is my godmothers brother," he said. "So it's like somebody I've known literally my entire life. And I've known Clarence, the owner, for many, many years, and to see this happen, it's Door County. We're very tight-knit community. So it's, everybody knows everybody, to have something so in tragic happen.”
Phillips knows why people went unaccounted for, for so many hours: many of the residents don't even have cell phones, he said.
“I'm not saying it was homeless people, but they were cheap rooms," said Phillips. "So the people that we're trying to find are people that are hard to find in the first place.”
