NJ Filmmaker Among Missing in Deadly Oakland Warehouse Fire

A filmmaker from Orange, New Jersey, is among the missing after a deadly fire tore through a warehouse in Oakland, California, during a music festival there on Friday night.

Friends and family of filmmaker Alex Ghassan were holding out hope but fearing for the worst on Sunday, two days after the blaze killed at least 36 people in what has since been deemed one of the country’s deadliest structure fires.

"We don't know anything. We're all prayerful. We're waiting for answers, we have no answers," his mother Emilie Grandchamps told NBC 4 New York Monday in Orange, New Jersey. 

"It's excruciating to wait for him," said Grandchamps, who was going to fly to California with some form of her son's DNA "so that they can tell me something."

“I’m heartbroken, but I’m trying to stay optimistic,” Richardine Bartee, a friend of Ghassan, said.

But Ghassan's aunt, Junie Moscova, got emotional as she told NBC 4 New York that she fears it might be time to accept that he won't return.

"The fact that we've tried to call his phone a couple times and it's gone straight to voicemail, and we're not hearing anything specifically form him," she said. "We're kind of bracing ourselves for whatever the news may be." 

Ghassan posted Instagram video that appears to be from inside the warehouse dance party just an hour before the deadly fire broke out.

Ghassan's fiancee Hannah also has not been seen or heard. A friend of the couple was able to make it out and spoke to Ghassan's family.

"He was really trying to make sure that Alex and Hannah got out, too, but unfortunately by the time he winded up getting out, the ceriling had caved in, and Alex and Hannah were still in the building," said Moscova. 

Ghassan is a director well known in Brooklyn for helping up and coming musicians. He’s also a father of two young girls.

"He has so much to live for," she continued, adding Ghassan worked in the Supreme Court in California and had other up-and-coming businesses. "Alex had a lot to live for, not to die for."

Grandchamps called Ghassan a "bull," describing him as a fighter and a fast thinker. 

"My son is absolutely phenomenol," said Grandchamps. "He's an artist at heart, a wonderful dad, a wonderful son, a wonderful friend. And we're waiting. We're waiting. We're just waiting and we're doing our best." 

Dozens of other families are also still anxiously waiting for news about their loved ones. It’s not known how many people were at the warehouse when the fire broke out.

In Westport, Connecticut, the family of Feral Pines received a phone call from the coroner's office Sunday night, according to her father Bruce Fritz. Pines loved art and music and had just moved to Oakland a few months ago.

"She was an amazingly kind and beautiful person who had the strength to be her true self, even when she knew that was not going to be an easy path," said sister Amanda Parry. 

Also missing is Gridden Madden from Morristown, New Jersey, who is an alumnus from UC Berkeley.

Meanwhile, the death toll continues to rise. The number of victims was nine on Saturday night — by Sunday it hit 33, and then 36 on Monday, with 33 of them identified. The sheriff's department in Alameda County says it doesn't believe the number of victims will grow drastically. Victims range in age from 17-years-old to people in their 30s.

Firefighters are searching night and day through rubble and ash. They said Monday that they had searched about 75 percent of the building.

New concerns have been raised about the warehouse, known as the “Ghost Ship.”

Photos show the artist compound cluttered with wood furniture and art pieces. There were no smoke alarms or sprinklers, and there were only two exits in the building and no easy way to get downstairs from the second floor, where many of the bodies were found.

A criminal investigation was launched Sunday and Oakland officials said something more should have been done.