HANNIBAL, MO. -- UPDATE: Tuesday, October 12 at 4:29 p.m.
Hannibal will have a full fleet of hotel rooms to offer visitors this weekend.
KHQA confirmed with employees at the Hannibal Inn Tuesday, that the hotel would be completely open by Wednesday.
You'll remember an electrical fire in the sauna closed the hotel Saturday morning.
Now all 242 rooms are expected to be ready for customers Wednesday.
-----------------------------------------------
UPDATE: Monday, October 11 at 5:00 p.m.
The Missouri State Fire Marshal's office has ruled the fire at the Hannibal Inn Saturday morning accidental due to an electrical problem in the sauna room.
You're looking at home video caught by Will Danielson.
He and his family stayed at the Hannibal Inn Friday night.
Fire alarms woke them up at 8:00 a.m.
There are two big attractions this weekend.
Both the Folk Life Festival in Hannibal and Tin Dusters are in Quincy.
And with 242 rooms out of service... Finding a place to stay will be difficult.
"I wish we had additional rooms and really right now we don't in this area but some end up canceling at the last minute, some end up opening up. So we're hopeful that we can, if they do call, we can help them try to find a room in the area. It's one of those things making some calls around and seeing where we can place them," said Quincy Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Holly Cain.
Hannibal Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Beau Hicks said they will work with visitors if they need help finding rooms.
-----------------------------------
UPDATE: Sunday, October 10 at 10:30 p.m.
The Hannibal Fire Department is still investigating what could have caused a fire in the Hannibal Inn's sauna room Saturday.
KHQA spoke with Beau Hicks from the Hannibal Convention and Visitors Bureau. He said the hotel's closure will mean big problems in the next week.
"It couldn't have happened on a worse weekend because this upcoming weekend, we have our FolkLife Festival. Quincy has Tindusters, so there really isn't an abundance of rooms to be had here in the Tri-States. It's one of the few weekends everybody's booked up," said Hannibal Visitors and Bureau Center Executive Director Beau Hicks.
Hicks also suggests that there should be more hotels in Hannibal. Out of the 800 rooms that Hannibal has, the Hannibal Inn has 200.
----------------------------------
Fire crews were called to the Hannibal Inn Saturday morning after reports that heavy smoke and flames were coming from the sauna room. Hannibal Fire Department first got the call around 8 a.m.
"We got up and the first thing we saw when we looked out of our door was flames coming out of a doorway on the other side of the pool area. So we quick got up the kids and got what clothes on we could and took them outside," said hotel guest Will Danielson.
KHQA has video that Danielson shot when he first heard the fire alarms going off.
"It probably took about 15-20 minutes to get the fire contained and then, of course, the rest of the time we spent evacuating the smoke from different parts of the building," said Hannibal Deputy Fire Chief Mike Benjamin.
"When we first came out it smelled very much like smoke the whole pool area was filled with smoke all the way to the ceiling," said Danielson.
The Missouri Fire Marshal's investigation team along with Hannibal Fire Chief, and Deputy Chief were working Saturday to find a cause.
"We've got the investigators looking at what caused the fire. We know where the origin of the fire started, in the sauna room, but we're trying to figure out what started the fire to begin with," said Deputy Fire Chief Benjamin.
The Hannibal Inn is closed and will be until the investigation is complete.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKHQA