Smoke and water damage shut down county’s only pharmacy

RBC — Saturday night’s fire shut down the county’s only pharmacy.
And, for now, there’s no idea when it will reopen.
“We’re indefinitely closed,” Dawn Eichman, daughter of Linda Blagg, owner of Meeker Drug, said Tuesday. “We’re meeting with the insurance company this week. From there, we’ll decide what we’re doing. We’re not estimating a time to reopen.”
Asked about Rangely Drug, which is also owned by Blagg, Eichman said, “There’s no pharmacy there. We filled all prescriptions at Meeker Drug, and couriered them (to Rangely). It was a place to pickup prescriptions. So, without Meeker Drug, Rangely Drug doesn’t exist.”
Meanwhile, Eichman said customers will have to go out of town, for now, to have prescriptions filled.
“We’re suggesting people contact their doctor and get another prescription, and then get the prescription called into a new pharmacy,” Eichman said. “We can’t even go into (the drugstore building), because of the amount of carbon monoxide, so we can’t get the computer chip to transfer prescription information to another computer.”
Debra Barney, nutrition director for the county’s Chuckwagon and Radino senior centers in Meeker and Rangely, said the loss of the pharmacy, at least temporarily, would be a hardship on older customers.
“I’m not sure what to tell people, other than to call the medical clinics,” Barney said. “Both towns are really affected. Just the paperwork of getting all your stuff changed to a new pharmacy can be overwhelming. A lot of (seniors) don’t drive. We’re just not sure what to do.”
An investigator with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was on the scene of the fire Monday.
“The CBI investigator completed his investigation, and the preliminary report was that he determined it was an electrical fire, but we don’t have an official report yet,” Eichman said. “That’s kind of what we thought (would be the cause), with it being an old building.”
Eichman said the fire was demoralizing.
“I’m not really sure what mom is thinking,” Eichman said. “We’ll have to wait and see what the insurance company says. It was my grandfather’s business. It’s been in my family for 40 plus years, if not longer.”
It will take a major effort to restore the drugstore building to working order again.
“All of the floor joists are burned,” Eichman said. “And there are two gigantic holes (in the floor), where they had to cut holes to put out the fire, which started in the basement, and went up from there.”
She said drugstore employees are “on standby” for now.