Ten days after an explosion tore through a Norwood apartment building, one displaced resident says she still has no idea where her family will sleep once their hotel stay ends this Wednesday. Ellese Falcon lost everything when the blast and five-alarm fire ripped through 374 East 209th Street, and she says the process of placing her family somewhere new is now tangled up in paperwork over her service dogs.
Falcon lived in a basement apartment in the building with her husband and 15-year-old son, along with 12 dogs, according to ABC7 New York. She has since re-homed eight of them, but four remain with her as service dogs tied to a medical condition, the outlet reports. Falcon told the station the placement process is making things impossible and that she fears her family could end up on the street once the hotel booking runs out on August 19.
The five-story walk-up, built in 1926, held 27 rental units and had racked up 685 open Housing Preservation and Development violations before the blast, according to JustFix property records. The fire affected 45 residents in total. Investigators believe the blaze began on the third floor, which sustained extensive damage and an interior collapse, though the fire’s ultimate cause remains under investigation, per the same ABC7 report.
Death Toll Climbed as Crews Searched Collapsed Floors
What began as reports of a single fatality grew grimmer over the following days. Recovery crews found a second body in the debris on August 7 and a third the next day, bringing the final toll to three victims, according to Norwood News. Firefighters had to shore up the building’s unstable interior before search teams could safely reach the upper-floor apartments, the outlet reported, which is why it took days to locate all the bodies…