When a massive Police Department warehouse burned Tuesday, troves of evidence gathered over decades disappeared in a towering column of smoke or crumpled into soggy ruin, along with the possibility of justice in untold cases.

On Wednesday, debris scattered outside the Erie Basin Auto Pound, in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, could only hint at the legal significance of what was lost to the three-alarm blaze the day before. The waterfront compound had held everything from souped-up vehicles seized from reckless drivers to forensic fibers from decades-old murders and cold cases.

Now soggy, crumpled boxes bearing fragments of bar codes slumped onto fire-hose-flooded streets. The sooty wreckage included a melange of sneakers, basketball jerseys and women’s blouses, along with an array of fishnet stockings, panties and bras. Small plastic cylinders containing genetic material lay melted, or broken open and submerged in dirty water.

See Also:

Kosovo formally applies to join EU – Greece is among countries that does not recognise it

Officials were still trying to determine how many criminal cases would be affected, but it was clear that the ramifications would be significant.

In addition to the property damage, the fire may have destroyed “the hopes and dreams of uncounted innocent people,” said civil rights lawyer Ron Kuby, who was unsure whether any of his clients’ evidence had been in the warehouse.

Read more: The New York Times