Lexus Berry, a 27-year-old resident of the building, said she noticed new cracks in her unit on Saturday that grew on Sunday ahead of the collapse. She and her wife grabbed their cats and were headed out the door when the building caved in. Her wife, Quanishia White-Berry, was pulled from the rubble Monday.
Moving out
Aurea Monet had moved out just eight days before the collapse after living there for seven months.
She told NBC News’ Top Story on Monday she grappled with major plumbing issues and noticed the back wall of the building “bowing” and a crack growing in her kitchen wall when construction on the building’s exterior was underway.
Monet said she “gave up” contacting management for help because they were not responsive.
She e-mailed management to break her lease on May 4 saying: “despite numerous requests to address these issues, they have not been resolved … I am concerned about the safety of other residents in the building.” Monet shared an email with NBC in which Village Property Management replied to her, saying: “There are no structural deficiencies within the building.”
Monet called the collapse “100% avoidable” noting, “If I had stayed, I would have been in that entire unit that collapsed.”
City acknowledged complaints, but reports claimed building was ‘structurally sound’
City officials acknowledged after the disaster that there had been numerous resident complaints about the property.
“The tenants of this building are pretty active,” Rich Oswald, the city’s director of development and neighborhood services, said this week. “They’ve called the city numerous times with complaints.”
On Tuesday, officials said that twice this year, the property owner had an outside engineering firm conduct assessment reports. Both times, once in January and again earlier this month, the property was deemed structurally safe.
NBC News has submitted a FOIA request for those reports and reached out to the engineering firm for comment.
Murray called the claims that the structure was deemed safe “BS.”
He also said the mayor appeared to downplay the number of complaints made about the building.
“It was a lot, a lot of complaints. Maybe they’re not keeping a record or not taking responsibility. I think that’s what the whole thing is right now — responsibility,” he said.
Aaron Aguilar, a maintenance employee at the property from 2016 to 2020, said that the building had notable damage after a derecho storm in August 2020, which brought high winds and rain.
He said a part of the rooftop was peeled back roughly six to eight feet, forming an “almost swimming pool” on the roof. A deluge of water fell on one side of the building from the rooftop to the first floor — the same side of the building that collapsed, he said.
“We had bricks that started crumbling after that storm. It was a very old historic building. All that water was rushing down the backside of the brick and eroding away the mortar. Essentially, the bricks were separating. Just nobody ever took us serious about it,” he said.
Aguilar said that he reported issues to the city at least six times and was told that inspectors would speak with the owner.
Aguilar said the owner of the building and contractors were aware of the issue.
“I feel it’s a combination of the city and owner being responsible, in my opinion,” he said.
He called the collapse just “heartbreaking,” noting that Ryan Hitchcock — one of the two people presumed to still be inside — a friend.
“There’s a lot of red flags,” he said on the handling of the building and its integrity.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
