Emergency crews responded to reports of a partially collapsed house on Grant Street in Newburgh, News 12 is told.
Neighbor Jessica Miles tells News 12 Westchester that she is still unnerved to walk outside of her home after the incident.
Officials say the vacant property was an accident waiting to happen. Assistant Fire Chief William Horton says the city issued multiple violations over the past few months but the remote building owner hasn’t shown up in court.
Horton says the incident underscores a bigger, citywide problem. He says there are hundreds of abandoned, crumbling homes in the area whose owners aren’t fixing the infrastructure – a problem that makes things extremely difficult for the only four inspectors who are responsible for working on 11,000 housing units in Newburgh.
"It puts people into danger,” he says. “And it’s something the city has to clean up."
Horton also says, however, that the amount of vacant buildings in the city has in fact gone down from 1,000 to 700 units over the past few years.