MIAMI — Nicholas Balboa was out walking his dog when he heard a rumble. At first, he thought it was thunder, but less than a minute later the ground started to shake. Soon after that, he saw the chaos.
"Everything had just fallen," Balboa said over FaceTime Thursday night. "Just sheer cutoff. Just gone."
Balboa, who lives in Glendale, was visiting his father near Miami when he went out for that walk early Thursday morning. What he'd learn later in the day is that he was witnessing the collapse of an occupied condo complex in Surfside, Florida.
Search and rescue teams are working around the clock searching for survivors. As of Thursday night, one person was killed, 102 were accounted for and 99 are still missing.
Balboa likened the scene to the aftermath of 9/11 - rubble was strewn everywhere and crews desperately searching for survivors. Despite the haunting debris, something drew Balboa closer to the carnage.
"I could make out what sounded like somebody yelling," he said. "So I got closer and closer and finally - it was the voice of a young boy."
He followed that voice until he saw a hand.
"Sticking his arm up through the debris where he could and wiggling his fingers," Balboa remembered.
He said he told the boy they would go find help, but the boy pleaded with him to stay.
"Please don't leave me," Balboa recalled. "Please don't leave me."
Instead, Balboa grabbed his phone and turned on the flashlight to signal first responders, who ultimately pulled the boy from the rubble, seemingly unhurt.
Balboa doesn’t know the boy’s name but learned he lived with his mom, who’s still one of the missing.
"I had recently lost my mom so it kind of brought up those emotions," he explained.
He’s baffled, too, wondering how the boy and so many other families fell into this fate. At this point, investigators don't have an answer and say the priority is finding people.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue posted a video on Twitter showing crews working from the basement up to try and find people in the rubble. People, dogs and machines will be working around the clock to try and comb through the wreckage.
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