NEW ORLEANS -- It was a scary morning for neighbors in the 1900 block of Columbus Street when a house on their block came crashing down.
Around 10:30 a.m. a building under construction collapsed with 11 workers inside.
“Sounded like a plane crash,” Carlton Smith, who lives next door, said. “Shook the whole house. My house and everything.”
Neighbors say that the people living in the house had moved out and it was finally being renovated for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. All 11 of the construction workers inside were injured when the building came down, two of them are listed in serious, but stable condition.
“Those patients that went to university hospital, two of those are serious but stable, five that went to Touro were all very stable, just minor injuries,” New Orleans EMS Public Information Officer Bill Salmeron said
Entergy disconnected power to the house due to safety concerns and city officials said the house would be torn down today.
Preservationists with the city’s historic district landmarks commission were on the scene to see if the home’s historic, irreplaceable doors and stained glass could be recovered. The building had been standing for nearly 140 years.
For safety reasons, next doors neighbors were told they had to leave their home for now.
“We don't have no whole lot of money, you know, we going by some relatives or something like that,” Smith said.
The cause of the collapse is still under investigation.