MIAMI (WSVN) - Miami Fire Rescue responded to a collapsed building in the area that displaced a family living nearby, Thursday morning.
The abandoned structure, located on Northwest 18th Avenue and Third Street, fell overnight onto an adjacent property, piercing the roof.
A family of three, along with their animals, living in the home next door are currently displaced as a result of the collapse.
Nicole Ojeda said the debris fell into her brother’s room as he was sleeping. She said it was absolutely terrifying and she had a million thoughts running through her mind.
“Yea, I was sleeping, then a loud noise, and when we go open the backroom, one of the bedrooms, the ceiling was caved in, any my younger brother was in there,” she said.
Ojeda said her father got them out of the house as the abandoned building next door continued to collapse on their home.
“It was all very shocking,” she said. “We got everyone out safe. We’ll deal with the property and items later.”
A neighbor also heard the collapse.
All of a sudden, after 3 a.m, we heard a big collapse, so my mother woke up, we woke up and we were just like, ‘What’s going,’ we looked outside and saw that the building was falling apart,” Elizabeth Silva said. “I was just shocked that this amount of rain, that the building would collapse that way.”
Officials said that the building was contracted to be demolished.
“It was under contract to be demolished, so we understand that the roof was initially removed, so that obviously made this very vulnerable to the weather conditions that we experienced last night,” said Miami Fire Rescue Capt. Ignatious Carroll.
Although officials said the building that collapsed was abandoned, they brought out a K-9 unit to ensure that a homeless person who frequented the area was not inside at the time of the implosion.
“So we see a shopping cart with items in it, as well as the bicycle that is probably used by that person, so those are indicators of concern,” Carroll said.
The first round of search reportedly did not find any people underneath the rubble, but as more of the debris gets removed, police said they used the K-9 unit to make sure no one was inside the abandoned house.
“This type of collapse is what you call a pancake collapse, which comes down right on top of each other, so it makes it very difficult for us to search without having to use heavy equipment to remove layers,” Carroll said.
Emergency crews are on the scene, cautiously removing the debris as they did find a propane tank under the structure.
Wednesday night’s storm proved to be a big mess for residents off Northwest Third Street.
“It did fall, and he was in it, but definitely wasn’t injured and he was able to walk out the debris.
No injuries were reported as a result of this incident.
It’s going to take some time until the family is able to move back into their home.
7News was told that K-9 units did not find any people under the rubble. Officials believe that the homeless individual was not at the scene Wednesday night during the time of the storm.
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