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Miami-Dade Police Release 911 Calls From Surfside Condo Collapse

a view of the champlain towers south from the water
Al Diaz
/
Miami Herald
Rescue crews continued working through the weekend at the site of Champlain Towers South, which collapsed early Thursday morning.

The first few calls to 911 started at 1:16 a.m. and there was little urgency. A woman calmly reported she heard an explosion. An alarm company noted a fire alarm had sounded.

But within minutes, as water was gushing through the parking garage over the pool deck and dropping chunks of concrete, the scope of the unfolding disaster at Surfside’s Champlain Towers South began to emerge. Caller after caller began frantically relaying their stories to emergency dispatchers. One woman could be heard saying “it’s an earthquake outside.”

“Holy s--t. We gotta get outta here. Hurry up. Hurry up. There’s a big explosion,” one man told 911. He couldn’t described what exactly was happening. “I don’t know, there’s a lot of smoke going in, I can’t see right now. Gotta get out of here. Gotta get outta here.”

Read more at our news partner the Miami Herald.

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