On the day before Thanksgiving in 2019, a fire tore through the 14th floor of Cedar High Apartments in Minneapolis. Five people died in the fire.
State fire marshals determined sprinklers could've prevented the tragedy. It led to calls for changes to state and federal law.
The high-rise apartment building, however, still doesn’t have sprinklers in every unit.
“When an alarm goes off, everyone runs away as if something's going to happen bad,” said Abdi Mohamed, whose mother died in the fire. “There’s no trust in that building because there’s no sprinklers. If there’s sprinklers, people might be at peace.” The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority told us it plans to start installing the sprinklers this fall. It’s part of a larger plan to retrofit 24 buildings across the system over the next three years, according to Deputy Executive Director Jennifer Keogh.