A partial collapse of a building under construction in Somerville, Massachusetts, Thursday had the city's fire department monitoring the Tufts Street property for additional problems, until the precarious walls were torn down by a demolition crew.
No one was injured in the structure collapse.
"I heard a big boom--it sounded like an earthquake," neighbor Simone Mathis said of the moment she heard the roof cave in. "It made [my] building shake a little bit."
Mathis described the structure as an eyesore in recent years. "I am glad to see it go," she told necn.
Two residents told necn they believed the building to be a former carriage house. Another said the property used to house a broom-making business.
The Somerville Fire Department said construction work to rehab the property was just getting going. Deputy Chief Christopher Major said workers all had their proper permits, and that everyone made it out safely.
"It's just a very old, old building and that may have contributed to why it collapsed," Major said.
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A demolition crew got right to work Thursday afternoon, tearing down the bones of the building. The goal, explained James Morando, the owner of Federal Environmental Group, a demolition contractor, was to prevent additional collapses.
"We don't want anything to collapse, [or] go through a window where there could be a child sleeping, anything like that," Morando added.
Morando said he theorizes that the additional weight of snow and ice on the roof of the building, even though there was only a small amount of accumulation, was enough to serve as the "straw that broke the camel's back," contributing to the structure's cave-in.
"I'm sad for the history of it," said neighbor Jerry Lauretano, who said he remembers his dad running a broom-making business out of the space when he was a kid.
"Thank God no one got hurt," Lauretano said. "No one got hurt, no one got killed. So that's the main thing. But then [consider] all the hardship it's going to bring to the property owner who has [a mess to deal with] now."
Morando said the debris should be carted away from the site next week or shortly thereafter.
