The toddler was sitting on the floor of his family’s third-floor apartment, playing with his toys, when his mother began to scream.
His older brother dashed past him, from the kitchen to a bedroom of apartment No. 3, with a carton of milk in hand. Suddenly, the walls began to quake and rumble.
Within seconds, they caved in. And debris tumbled down.
As the windows were blown out and the floors trembled, Joseph, 2, tried to crawl backward, footage from a surveillance camera in the family’s Brooklyn apartment shows. The New York Times obtained the footage and verified it after speaking to the father of the boys, Anderson, who asked that his family last name not be used to protect their privacy.
The surveillance video was reported on earlier by the Gothamist and other news outlets.
It is unclear what caused the three-story apartment building in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn to collapse on Wednesday afternoon. The building fell onto a neighboring construction site, killing eight people, including two children, and injuring at least 18 others, officials said. Rescue workers determined on Thursday night that there were no more victims, after 24 hours of searching through the rubble.
Anderson said that he and his family lived on the top floor, in the apartment facing the street. He had been with his boys until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, when he left for his construction job painting walls in the Bronx. He had just settled in when he received a frantic call from his wife.
He could barely make out what she said before the call dropped. But he knew she was pleading for help, so he rushed home.
Anxious as he made his way home, and uncertain what had prompted his wife’s call, he saw a video on social media. It was of a construction worker holding his son in the aftermath of the collapsed building.
Among the injured were his wife, Johana, and his eldest son, Pablo, 9, who were taken to a local hospital. Pablo underwent surgery on Wednesday, and the doctors determined that he had no brain injuries. He was moved to intensive care on Thursday and was able to speak, Anderson said.
Anderson said his wife, who was still in the hospital, had suffered a broken clavicle and was in incredible pain.
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Along with other displaced residents, Anderson and Joseph were staying in a hotel room on Thursday night.
“We were left with nothing,” Anderson said, looking around the room, where two bottles of baby formula sat on a night stand, both nearly empty. A package of diapers sat on an air-conditioner, and three hospital bands were laid out on a countertop.
Sitting on a bed, Anderson looked down at his son, who he said had survived with only scratches. “This child is a gift from God,” he said.
His two boys often played with the other children in the building, including two who have been identified as cousins and were among the eight people who died in the collapse.
“What’s so sad,” he said, “is that the children who died were their friends.”
Anderson tried to quiet his son’s sobs by playing cartoons — Paw Patrol, Bluey — in Spanish on his phone. But when the videos ended, Joseph cried out for his mother.
“Honestly,” he said, “I am still in shock.”
The post Within Seconds, the Walls Caved and Debris Tumbled Down appeared first on New York Times.
