7 Killed as Store Collapses in Texas Rain

The roof and front wall of a department store collapsed in a torrential rainstorm Thursday, killing at least seven people, injuring 60 and trapping others in the rubble, authorities said.

“It looks real bad,” said Cameron County Sheriff Alex Perez of the disaster at the two-story downtown Amigo Stores in the Mexican border city. “It’s a disaster. It was just like a bomb hit that corner store there.”

Several hours after the accident, emergency crews were still digging through huge mounds of broken cinder blocks, glass and merchandise to pull out survivors and look for more victims.

Witnesses Heard Screams

Rescuers also were cutting through a wall inside a Woolworth’s store next door to reach some of those trapped. Witnesses said they heard screams from the wreckage.

Linens and clothing blown from the store by high winds were being used to wrap the wounds of the injured.

Police Sgt. Dean Poos said, “We don’t really think there are going to be any more live people coming out of there.”

Ambulances and rescue personnel were hampered in reaching the scene by floodwaters from the downpour. Steve Fitzgibbons, acting assistant city manager, said some local businesses had volunteered front-end loaders and cranes to help.

The National Weather Service said the roof collapse could have been caused by the weight of the rain, which dumped more than 2 inches in less than 30 minutes.

‘Store Was Packed’

Sheriff’s Lt. Johnny Castillo said the store was half a block from the international bridge and that when the storm began, a large number of Mexican nationals “were running there to get out of the rain. The store was packed.”

Poos said store owner Bernard Levine told him that when the roof collapsed, “he jumped under a table, and all he knows is that when everything settled, he looked up and there was blue sky above him.”

Levine said he escaped with three employees and three customers.

Poos said the dead included a woman who was apparently crushed as she sat in a car with Mexican license plates in front of the building. Two others were killed as they stood under a canopy in front of the store.

“All of a sudden, I hear a noise kind of like a boom and I was looking directly at the store and I see this tan-colored, sandy-colored wall that filled the whole front of the store,” said Anthony Padilla, a Brownsville Herald photographer who was shooting weather photos in front of the store when the roof collapsed.

‘Windows Just Exploded’

“It was coming forward, then the windows, the entire storefront, the windows just exploded out,” he said. “Glass just went out. People just went like this, covered their heads, kind of ducked down, and in the next instant, the whole thing just came down.

“The people I had been looking at were just covered with rubble,” he said, adding one woman’s hand was pinned to a parking meter after a steel I-beam collapsed and left her surrounded with cinder blocks.

U.S. Border Patrol officials and other law enforcement agencies, including Mexican authorities, assisted in the rescue operation.

An emergency treatment center was set up at a civic center about two blocks away and authorities blocked off the area.

City hospitals were “pretty much inundated” with injured, Poos said.

A spokeswoman for Valley Medical Center said that six Americans and five Mexican nationals were being treated for injuries, ranging from cuts to broken bones.