Residents of a condo on Fort Lauderdale beach were ordered to evacuate by noon Friday after the building’s foundation was found to be unsafe, a city official said Thursday.
The evacuation order, relayed by the building’s engineer of record, had residents at the 18-unit Springbrook Gardens condo scrambling to find a new place to stay on short notice.
“Everybody was in shock,” said Warren Sackler, a retired professor from New York who moved into the condo nearly 20 years ago.
Sackler, 74, paid $370,000 for a one-bedroom unit in 2007. Nine years later, he bought the unit next door for $358,000, knocked down a wall and doubled his living space.
On Thursday, he was packing up his belongings and moving to a nearby condo that had a unit available for rent.
“I lucked out,” Sackler said. “Some people are not even here. I would say out of 18 units, five or six people are out of town right now. This is their second home.”
Fort Lauderdale is trying to connect residents with resources to help them find a place to stay, city spokeswoman Ashley Doussard said. “There’s only 12 people living there right now. Some of the residents are snowbirds.”