South View Floor Caves
November 10, 2008 • By Anna Young, Managing Editor
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“Bringin’ down the house” was brought to a new level when the floor of apartment I of 1044 South View collapsed Saturday night. The four tenants were throwing a party for a friend’s birthday when the floor caved in; no one was hurt.
The entire building was evacuated for about an hour and a half when Harrisonburg police, the fire department and a building inspector arrived shortly after 1 a.m. Most of the tenants were allowed to return to their apartments once the building had been investigated, but apartment I will remain vacant until the building inspector makes his final report some time today, according to Ian Bennett, Deputy Fire Chief of the Harrisonburg Fire Department.
Junior Jessica Bryant was in her room when she heard someone in her apartment yelling for everyone to get out because the floor was collapsing.
“By the time I got out of bed and into the living [room], most everyone was gone,” Bryant said in an e-mail Sunday afternoon.
Bennett can’t confirm how many people were in the apartment, but there were “more than there should have been,” he said. Bryant also didn’t know the exact number of people present at her party.
“There was some overcrowding in there and it compromised the floor joist,” Bennett said. “I think this has happened a couple of times in that apartment complex.”
Taylor Compton, a junior who lives across the breezeway from 1044 I, has heard of similar incidences in South View. “It’s happened to the girls that lived, like, directly below me and my friends over in [1053].”
Bryant said that that JMU’s Office of Residence Life will be providing temporary housing for the three tenants who attend JMU.
“The fourth is not a JMU student, but South View has one extra room available for her,” Bryant said. “Me and two other roommates were able to stay with some friends, while the fourth went to a hotel. That will probably be the case tonight as well, ’cause some things still need to be determined.”
Contact Anna Young at youngam@jmu.edu
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