Residents on Ann Street were very shaken Tuesday night. They cannot go home and for those who are also customers of the garage, they just lost their vehicles and of course, their sense of safety. Their confidence that buildings are not supposed to fall down has been rocked.
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"I'm in shock. I'm in shock," said Sandy Imhoff who lives next door to the collapsed parking garage. "What can I say?"
There is a gaping hole in Imhoff's apartment. She's lived here 40 years and now cannot go back into her second-floor loft. She remembers the construction noise next door being louder than usual before the garage collapsed.
"They had been doing work, pounding on the floor," Imhoff said. "It was getting a little ridiculous this time. They were really pounding."
Christine Lu says her building was shaking as the garage floors buckled and sent a shower of cars into a mangled heap. Her SUV was parked on the roof where it tipped onto its side.
"It was pretty scary but now we're just a little more scared about the condition of the guys," Lu said.
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Nine-year-old Jensen Blance said he was scared hearing the crumbling of the garage.
"When we came out, there were sirens and lots of noise," he said.
The Cohens' Nissan, also on the roof, is now its resting on its nose.
"No. I didn't think the floors were going to collapse," garage customer Adam Cohen said. "Pieces flake off on the car from the ceiling but that's kind of normal wear and tear on a building. We didn't think it was going to collapse."
"They put all the minivans and SUVs, all the heavy cars, on the roof," 14-year-old Marc Cohen said. "It's a very old building."
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Jim Slattery parked his car at the garage minutes before the fatal collapse
"I arrived at 4 p.m., parked the car, walked around the corner to the café to grab a cup of coffee, took about 10 minutes, hung out" he said. "I see a whole bunch of activity in the street. Had no idea there was a collapse."
For a long time, customers of the garage, who know the workers by name and see them every day, they are feeling the loss of a neighborhood friend Tuesday night.
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