A Blair County Judge has granted a temporary injunction that will prevent New Pig officials from allowing the warehouse destroyed by fire on Halloween to be leveled.
Judge Daniel J. Milliron recently granted the injunction which will allow representatives of the Philips Electronics North American Corp and Philips Lighting Co., companies who New Pig say may be the culprit of supplying faulty equipment that may have caused the multi-million dollar fire at the chemical absorbent manufacturing plant, to be present during demolition so they can sift through the debris and arrive at their own conclusions.
The demolition work was scheduled to begin Monday, but because of the temporary injunction, that work is now delayed. Judge Milliron, however, told the attorneys on both sides that proposed work schedules must be presented by tomorrow so the court can allow New Pig to proceed with the demolition.
New Pig notified a number of companies, including General Electric and the ones mentioned above, in November that they (the companies) may hold the responsibility for the fire because of faulty light bulbs that may have malfunctioned and ignited the blaze.
New Pig officials claim they have no problem with allowing the companies’ representatives to be on location when the remains of the warehouse are demolished, but they also said they don’t want to wait until January to begin the work.
“This came out of nowhere,” said Carl DeCaspers, public relations director with New Pig, this morning. “There’s nothing I can say. I don’t know a thing about it.”
