Hundreds displaced after fire in Center City Philadelphia high-rise
Residents were told by front office staff to make alternative arrangements to stay elsewhere until further notice.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Residents were forced to evacuate a high-rise in Philadelphia's Center City after a fire broke out in the building early Monday morning.
A resident captured video of water leaking out of the ceiling in her apartment building's elevator. Another photo shows the flooded hallways after a fire broke out around 12:30 a.m. at 1919 Market St.
There are more than 300 units in this high-rise. Now hundreds of people have to find a place to stay, and they have no idea when they'll be allowed to return to their apartments.
"Normally, these fire alarms are not actual fires, but I immediately smelled smoke, so we went downstairs and then we saw water flooding into the lobby and then we knew that it was a real fire," Kate Farrell recalled.
At first, it was hours of waiting out in the cold to return. Now, it could be days.
"Around 3 o'clock in the morning, they gave the actual announcement that we cannot return to our units," Camille Eloi said.
Building management sent an email saying they'd been informed by the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections that they can't let people back in yet, and that "all residents must make alternative arrangements to stay elsewhere until further notice."
Residents were allowed to enter their apartments on Monday to retrieve some of their belongings.
"We were really stressed last night because we didn't know what the state of our apartment was gonna be, because we were getting pictures of flooding, but all of our apartments are thankfully fine," Maanasa Gurram told Action News.
"Really frustrating because this isn't the first time this has happened in our building. In the time we've lived here in a year and a half, we've had five or six either false alarm fire emergencies or actual emergencies, so it's kind of frustrating because we don't know what's going on," Claire Malkin said.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but the resident who called 911 told Action News off-camera that someone threw an item that was still burning down the trash chute. Nobody was hurt.
"Thanksgiving's coming around so just be grateful that you're able to have steady home and a steady environment because a lot of people here are displaced right before a holiday season with family and friends," Eloi said.
"There's nothing I can do about it, so I'm just going with the flow and I hope they can at least give us an estimate of when I can get back into my apartment," Alvin Grissom said.
Building management told residents they're working with fire officials to assess the damage and determine when they can return, but so far, there's no word on when that will be.
Action News reached out to building management, but we haven't heard back.
