Fire Destroys Pike County Shopping Center
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Posted: 9:15 AM Dec 29, 2009
Fire Destroys Pike County Shopping Center
It's still not known what sparked a fire that destroyed an entire shopping center in Elkhorn City on Christmas Eve.
Reporter: WSAZ News Staff
Email Address: news@wsaz.com
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ELKHORN CITY, Ky. (WSAZ) -- It's still not known what sparked a fire that destroyed an entire shopping center in Pike County on Christmas Eve.

A pawn shop, beauty shop, Appalachian Wireless store, a Mexican restaurant and some storage areas in the Russell Shopping center in Elkhorn City are all gone.

The owner of Russell Shopping Center, Bill Blankenship, says some downed trees caused power lines to fall on the roof of the building, which might have caused the fire. He also says once they finally got power back last week, there could have been a power surge.

Bill and his wife have owned Russell Shopping Center for nearly 20 years. When he went to check on the building Christmas Eve morning, something was wrong.

"When I got back there, all I seen kind of towards the roof, or towards the wall -- I couldn't tell which one it was -- but there was a ball of fire and that's all I could see," Blankenship said.

He was the only one inside and called the fire department immediately.
He says as the shopping center burned, it was too much to handle.

Blankenship says they do not know the extent of the damage financially yet. He did have insurance.

The Elkhorn City fire chief says the incident is under investigation.

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Latest Comments

Posted by: To Jay on Dec 29, 2009 at 05:06 PM

Tiger probably found another girlfriend yesterday. That's what took-up news time and prevented the story.
Posted by: Anonymous on Dec 29, 2009 at 02:06 PM

.....the pictures are very informative too.
Posted by: JAY on Dec 29, 2009 at 09:47 AM

I like how this story comes out 4 days after the fire, Must have been a slow day in the news yesterday
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