Mother recalls terrifying phone conversation as daughter's apartment building collapsed
DAVENPORT, Iowa ― Donalda McDuffy wasn't in the downtown apartment building when a section of it collapsed on Sunday.
Instead, she was on the phone with her daughter, Tatianna Pullman ― who was.
Speaking Tuesday to the Des Moines Register, part of the Paste BN Network, she said her 22-year-old daughter, a resident of the building, had phoned her in a panic, saying, "Mom, Mom, the building’s falling, the building’s falling."
McDuffy wasn't sure what Pullman was telling her. "I said, 'What do you mean?'"
Her daughter, fleeing for her life, described a horrifying scene, she said.
'It looked like a bomb... went off'
"She said, 'The building's collapsing. I’m running, I’m running,'" McDuffy said. "She said she opened her door and it looked like a bomb ... went off in the building. It was pitch black, and all she could hear was the alarms. I’m guessing the fire alarms."
"She said, 'Mom, I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared,' " McDuffy recalled, breathlessly recounting the terrifying conversation. "She said, 'Mom, I can see the outside. The building’s coming down, it’s coming down, it’s coming down.'"
McDuffy said she sped to the scene.
"When I got that, I was on 53rd Street in Davenport," she said. "I did 100 to get to my daughter. … I was down here in a matter of minutes."
She said that when she arrived, authorities were starting to block off access to the building, which was still crumbling as residents emerged.
More: 8 people rescued, no deaths reported after building collapses in Davenport, Iowa
Daughter has received little aid
"It was like something from a war movie," she said, adding that the escaping tenants were covered in gritty dust just like office workers pictured as they fled the World Trade Center on 9/11.
"We was throwing water on them, throwing towels at them, just to get it off," she said. "They were yelling that, 'My mom is in there', 'My sister’s in there,' 'There’s kids in there.' 'Get in there.'… It was a bad scene."
She said her daughter, who works with troubled teens, escaped with her life and little else.
"She has nothing now," she said, complaining that aid has been slow in coming, despite a gubernatorial disaster declaration for Scott County intended to free up state assistance to the displaced residents.
"So Gov. Kim Reynolds signs this little piece of paper," she said. "What does that mean for the people who live in that building? What does that mean for everybody who's got nowhere to go?"
Many, like her daughter, "have nothing," she said. "They lost everything."