Posted on 06/29/2021 11:24:14 AM PDT by rxsid
Survivor describes escape from Florida condo collapse: ‘I kept going, screaming ... I want to live’
...
Monteagudo, 64, was asleep Thursday morning when a strange feeling woke her. “It’s like something supernatural woke me up. I felt something strange, and I thought, 'Oh, I forgot to close the sliding door to the balcony, and the wind is making the noise,’ ” she said. “I tried to close the sliding door, and it felt like the building was moving. The door wouldn’t close.”
Then Monteagudo heard a crack. There was a line in the wall coming down from the ceiling — about two fingers wide. “Then it started getting wider and wider as I watched,” she said. “Something said, you have to run. You have to run immediately.”
“I ran to my bedroom, and took off my robe and changed into any dress and any sandals. I ran to the dining room table, I got my purse and my credit cards. I took the key, I blew out the candle that I light every night for Guadalupe of Mexico,” she said. “I blew out the candle, just in case.”
Monteagudo ran to the stairs, descending quickly. Between the sixth and fourth floors, there was a noise — and she realized the building was falling. ... “I thought if it’s coming down, ... like a domino effect,” she said.
...
When Monteagudo finally escaped from a door, there was water up to her ankles, and cables floating in it. She ran into a security guard. “He told me, ‘Mama, mama, let’s go, this is an earthquake,’ ” Monteagudo said. “I said, ‘No, it’s not an earthquake, it’s the building falling down.’
...
“I lost everything,
, woman who lived across the hall, disappeared. She hasn’t been found,”
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
The significant phenomenon that likely took place here was normalcy bias and Maria Monteagudo deserves kudos for doing something most people would not do. Most people would not believe what they were seeing and they’d call building maintenance, call their kids, send a text to someone asking about what was going on...and no doubt many people died in their apartments due to their inability to accept that an extraordinary event was taking place.
Monteagudo was smart enough to start making her way out of the building. I can’t blame her for getting dressed and then grabbing her ID on the way out. It was also very thoughtful of her to extinguish the candle as doing so may right now be saving a life...who knows?
In any case she took action.
Lots of people have died to the firm conviction that “this can’t be happening!”
Maria Iliana Monteagudo is not one of them.
Smart lady.
600k condo, with $900 a month in association fees.
Good notes on the article. Freepers won’t have to read it.
Bad move. 8 was pulled by the mods. You never can tell how things will turn out for sure.
for those out there still clinging to the terrorist blew up the building theory.
Pulled that one out of yer but did ya
Does the $900 fees include property taxes?
Or maybe elderly and just shaken from bed and trying to figure out WTF is going on.
What would your garandmother, mother do in this situation or you, you don’t know.
The collapse WAS sudden.. The preparation for the structural failoure was not sudden, it had been going on for months and accelerated at the end before the sudden collapse.
Lol...read the first comment on the thread again.
Seems you are thinking of a candle as like a simple candle but I would think as someone who regularly does this her candles are of the type that are safe in a glass.
You know, before electricity people actually used candles and survived right?
Lighten up Francis , er, Karen
I followed your comment as well, which made a fair bit of sense. That said, given how much 8 factored into the thread even after getting pulled, I failed to resist the opportunity to be a smart-ass.
Well maybe she was thinking I may need to give the mortician something to go off of /// <== sarcasm people please no griping.
74 above in regards to putting make-up on.
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