FAIRFAX, Va. (ABC7) —
Crews blocked off the United Bank property on Fair Lakes Boulevard in Fairfax on Thursday. A day prior, a fire ripped through the building.
“I just wanted to see it,” longtime United Bank customer Stephen Vandivere said. “I wanted to see how visibly bad the damage was.”
Customers stopped by on Thursday with cell phones in hand snapping pictures of the building.
Doris Boyd, a customer of the bank, says her safety deposit box, with irreplaceable family things inside, is somewhere inside what’s left of the building.
“These things are just things, but they mean so much because they were family pieces and so that’s the tragedy,” she said.
It’s a tragedy and concern others felt on Thursday, too.
“I’m just hoping and praying that all these safety deposit boxes are safe for everyone,” said Audrey Grena, who says her safety deposit box contains jewelry from her late sister.
“I had some concern about my safety deposit box. Now, my concern is deeper than it was,” Vandivere said while looking back at the building.
United Bank representatives were on site on Thursday.
On Thursday afternoon, the company did not yet know the status of the safety deposit boxes.
“It’s that feeling of, yes, we chose to put it in what we thought would be a very safe place for things that can’t be replaced and now we’re having that struggle of trying to realize, ‘What do we do now?’” Boyd said.
At the top of their website, United Bank has a banner reading, “THE FAIR LAKES OFFICE, LOCATED AT 13060 FAIR LAKES BLVD., FAIRFAX, VA, WILL REMAIN CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE DUE TO DAMAGE FROM A FIRE THAT OCCURRED ON MAY 2, 2018. PLEASE VISIT OUR FAIRFAX MAIN OFFICE AT 11185 FAIRFAX BLVD., FAIRFAX, VA, OR CALL 703.219.4850.”
“This is just going to be a wait and see,” Grena said of the situation.
“We take life as it comes,” Boyd said. “This is how it came. This is incredible, it happened to be, that kind of thing. But, we just deal with it and move on.”