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Roof Collapses at Apartment Complex
10/24/08 - 10:21 AM

Central Panhandle Chapter of the American Red Cross

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Eight families are homeless after a roof collapses at a Panama City apartment complex.

Building C at Macedonia Garden Apartments has been undergoing roof renovations. Construction workers placed tarps on the roofs last night, but they couldn’t withstand the heavy rain.

LaWanda Williams, a tenant at Macedonia Gardens, was prepared to take care of a few leaks, but couldn’t have imagined how big the leaks could be.

“Yesterday the roofers came and were doing their job, and God decided for it to rain,” Williams told News 13. “I know this little spot in the house where it starts leaking, so I got buckets and everything and put them in the different spots. Last night we stayed in a hotel room because I didn’t want to take the chance of it falling in as you can see. So I came back today to get the children to the bus stop and came and check on the house and this is what I come home to.”

What Williams came home to was a home covered in debris from the collapsed roof, with 2-4 inches of standing water covered the entire apartment.

“I was devastated because everything in here is ours, me and my children. It’s nothing now. It’s all gone bye-bye so we have to start over.”

Several families were in the apartment when the roof collapsed, but no one was injured.
 
There are 8 families total in the building; the 4 families on the first floor were able to save most of their possessions, but those on the second floor have lost everything due to the flooding and debris.

Tenants spent the morning salvaging everything they could, despite dangerous conditions. Williams rescued everything she could, but it wasn’t much. “Just little things…paintings from school, clothes, I mean everything is gone. The little things that you can get, that’s what you get, as you see. That’s about it it’s just the memories and the thought of you losing what you had. It’s like somebody just taking it away from you when it’s yours.”

Her biggest concern was saving her three children’s things. She didn’t bring her kids back with her because she just couldn’t let them see their home in that condition.

“Everybody in this building has children. That’s who is really affected by the whole situation is the children. It’s not so much the parents it’s the children because this is their home not ours…. I can’t let them see this.”

She says she plans to make the best of the situation. “[I’ll] hopefully try to rebuild myself try to rebuild what we had, make it better than what it was.”

Macedonia gardens manager declined to comment, but Williams says she doesn’t feel the workers or the apartment had any fault in the accident. “I’m not upset with the roofers because no one can control the weather. They tried to fix the problem but in the process the problem led to this. So I’m not upset with the roofers.”

The apartment complex is moving some of the damaged building’s tenants to other apartments, and the Central Panhandle Chapter of the American Red Cross is providing hotel rooms for the remaining displaced residents.

Williams says in a way, she’s lucky. “I do have support. And we’re grateful for what we have left. That’s how I see it.”

The Central Panhandle Chapter of the American Red Cross receives no government funding.  If you would like to help the families affected or other victims of disasters like this, you can do so by logging on to redcrosscpc.org or by calling 763-6587.