Fire kills 6 in Chicago building

CHICAGO -- Jerry Lawrence could smell the smoke as he headed for the stairs on the 32nd floor, but he figured it was just a trash fire. It wasn't until he and others had crowded into the stairwell and the smoke began thickening around them that he began to worry.\nOnce outside, Lawrence and his co-workers from the Cook County State's Attorney's office huddled in a group as flames and smoke poured from the government building's 12th floor. As the minutes passed, they prayed for one colleague still missing -- Randy Roberts, 47.\nThe fire began around 5 p.m. Friday as many workers in the 35-story Cook County administration building were preparing to go home for the weekend. Smoke filled the downtown tower's two stairwells as people followed an announcement to evacuate.\nOnly after the blaze had been put out did firefighters find about a dozen more people in the stairwell and on the 22nd floor, fire officials said. Six of them were dead.\nRoberts was among the survivors. Saturday, he and seven others remained hospitalized, some in serious or critical condition.\nOfficials hadn't determined Saturday what started the fire but said it had gutted a storage room in the Secretary of State's office and damaged much of the 12th floor. Fire Commissioner James Joyce said the building had an alarm system but no sprinklers above the first floor. It holds as many as 2,500 people during business hours.\nOne question investigators were asking was whether workers should have been told to evacuate.\nEmployees said they obeyed an announcement to leave the building using two smoke-filled stairwells, but Joyce said Saturday that fire officials didn't issue the order or know who did.\nThe Cook County Medical Examiner's office said Saturday that Teresa Zajac, 51, and Felice Lichaw, 51, died in the fire. It later identified another victim as Janet Grant, 47, an attorney for the Cook County Forest Preserve District and the daughter of one-time Jet magazine executive editor Robert Johnson.\nThe office also confirmed the names of three victims identified by Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy as his employees.\nMaureen McDonald, 57, worked with the state's elderly wards; Sara White Chapman, 38, was an attorney; and John Slater III, 39, represented children in divorce cases, Murphy said.\n"I haven't slept in two days. I loved these three people," Murphy said. "They were government people at work at 5:15 on a Friday,that tells you what kind of people they were."\nMurphy also criticized fire officials' response to the blaze, saying employees who tried to evacuate down the smoky stairwell were told when they reached the 12th floor to go back up. The employees were unable to find open doors until the 27th floor, and many were unable to escape the stairwell.\n"This is negligence from A to Z," Murphy said. "I have a lot of questions. Why didn't firemen escort trapped workers back up the stairs? You don't let people wander around a burning building. Your first job is to save people."\nMurphy also said he was frustrated by the city's response.\n"No one from the city has called to say they're sorry. Not (Mayor Richard M.) Daley, not Joyce, it's crazy."\nJoyce defended the department's actions.\n"We responded very quickly with the appropriate manpower and did some courageous work," he said.\nLawrence, a spokesman for State's Attorney Richard Devine, said he was finishing up paperwork when he heard the announcement to leave the building.\nHe made it to safety and was thankful his colleague Roberts did, too.\n"Randy used up a couple of those nine lives yesterday," Devine said. "We're delighted he's OK"