SNOW CAUSES COLLAPSE.
Front of Fifteenth Street Building
Falls, but No One is Hurt.
The northwest quarter of a two-story brick flat at Fifteenth and Baltimore collapsed yesterday morning at 4:30. The building sits up on a high embankment which has ben made exceedingly dangerous on account of the grading which has been necessary in cutting Fifteenth street through to Baltimore avenue.
The foreman of the grading gang had ordered the building braced with wooden supports. This was done, but the sleet and snow of yesterday morning caused the props to slip. With the statys gone or useless the outer wall of the building fell into the street.
The house was occupied by two families at the time of the accident. Mrs. Lulu Kelley and her family lived on the ground floor and Charles O'Day lived upstairs with his wife and two children. O'Day and his wife had left their two children in charge of Mrs. O'Day's sisters while they themselves spent the night with a relative who was ill.
When the people in the flat were awakened by the shock of the collapse, they ran out into the back yard in their night clothes, and despite the snow and cold, did not dare return into the house until they had been satisfied that there was no further danger of collapse.
When the police arrived and found that no one was injured, they called in the fire deparment to inspect the part of the building which remained standing. The occupants were told that they might stay the rest of the night in the rear rooms of the house in safety. At the break of dawn they had all of their household goods packed and ready to move.
W. H. Hawkins, a building inspector, says that he had notified the tenants of the flat two weeks ago that their home was in a dangerous condition. He said the building would have to be torn down.
