Construction Maison

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A massive fire in Hagerstown has forced more than 70 people from their apartments Tuesday night . It started right after a thunderstorm rolled through. Residents say the fire started right after the building was hit by lightning, and they watched for 30 minutes while the fire department was unable to get enough water on the flames. “It was just horrific. I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Shawn Lohr, who lives across from the complex. “We heard the lightning hit, but I thought it hit outside on the pavement, and then the next thing I know, the alarm went off,” said Roxie Vickers, who lives in the apartments. The State Fire Marshal ’s Office confirms the fire was caused by a lightning strike, and all residents of the apartment have been accounted for. It was just after 8 p.m., when the storms rolled through Hagerstown, and the Woodbridge North Apartments went up in flames. “In a matter of 15-20 minutes, it was the whole roof, gone,” one resident said. “...

WARNER ROBINS, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Several people without a home Tuesday night after fire ripped through the Wellston Ridge Apartments in Warner Robins Monday night . No one was hurt, but seven of those units are completely destroyed . “It moved like a monster,” said Miguel Jimenez. “I pulled up and it was going.” He came home to see his apartment complex up in flames and immediately ran inside to grab his wife and dog. Seven homes completely destroyed within minutes. The Warner Robins Fire Department hasn ’t said exactly how the fire started, but Jimenez says she had something to do with it. “The girl (neighbor) on the porch when I pulled up,” said Jimenez. “She just walked up to me like there was nothing going on, she asked me to use my phone and I was like ‘yeah, sure’ well I need to call the fire department , my kitchen’s on fire.” The fire department got the call around five in the afternoon, but the f...

A Florida judge denied bond for 22-year-old Velmando Williams, who is being accused of locking three children in a bedroom before setting fire to their apartment after an argument with their mother, according to the Palm Beach Post . Last week, a Stonybrook Apartment fire nearly took the lives of three children. It was reported that Tranice Smith, 19, and Williams, who is the father two of her children, was in a heated argument. Smith stated that she was cut in the back of the head and held down by her shirt. When she was able to break free, she said she ran out of the apartment and told Williams that she was going to call the police. That’s when Williams told her that he was going to set the apartment on fire before slamming and locking the door. Williams allegedly locked the three children in a bedroom inside the Stonybrook Apartment before setting fire to the couches in the living room by using cooking oil. Afterward, he jumped from an open window and fled the scene, according t...

SILVER SPRING, MD — Thursday is the one-year anniversary of the devastating explosion at the Flower Branch Apartments that killed seven residents, two of whom were children, and displaced about 100 people. A vigil will be held to remember the victims Thursday evening . The Aug. 10, 2016 blast was caused by a natural gas leak . A total of 28 apartment units were destroyed, and 50 families were displaced by the disaster. Dozens of residents were injured at the scene, some from burns and others from broken bones as they jumped from the third and fourth floors of the buildings. The vigil will be held by the nonprofit CASA from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday in the parking lot across the street of 8658 Piney Branch Rd. The vigil will honor those lost and the families of the victims will be invited to speak. The victims killed in the blast were: Deibi “David” Samir Lainez Morales, 8 Fernando Josue Hernandez Orellana, 3 Augusto Jimenez Sr., 62 Maria Auxiliadorai Castellon-Martinez, 53 Saul Pa...

A woman visiting her daughter’s apartment in Oceanside Tuesday night was shot by a neighbor who – while cleaning his gun – accidentally discharged a round into the floor that separates the units, striking the victim as she sat on the couch watching television . The Oceanside Police Department (OPD) said the accidental shooting happened just before 11 p.m. at a small residential building on Bush Street, less than a half-mile from Interstate 5, in San Diego's North County. Investigators said the neighbor, whose name was not released, had sat down to clean his 9mm Glock handgun when he accidentally discharged a chambered round into the floor of his apartment. In the unit directly below was a woman from Huntington Beach, California, who was in town house sitting for her daughter. The bullet went through the floor and into the lower-level apartment, hitting the woman in the leg. The neighbor who discharged the gun ran downstairs to help the victim and called 911. When officers ...

CBS12 reporter Yaremi Farinas has the latest on the Stonybrook apartment fire . (WPEC) RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) —  A newly released report shed light on the circumstances surrounding the apartment fire that nearly claimed the lives of three children. The report says Trenice Smith, the mother of the children, ran out of the apartment half naked after 22-year-old Velmando Williams, the father of her two sons, stabbed her in the back of the head with a knife during an argument. Latoya Rentz remembers the moment Smith noticed her three small kids were trapped inside a burning apartment . “When I looked at the window and they started getting black and stuff I'm like, 'Oh my God,'” Rentz said. “The girl Trenice was saying the kids were locked in." Williams locked Smith out of the apartment as she called for help, police said. “He don’t even know what he did to Trenice, what he did to her family,” Rentz said. Below is the recording of a 911 call that captured the cha...

Suspicious person, two people in alley, both tried to walk away, male stated he was trying to find cigarettes on the ground then going home, Alex. Suspicious vehicle, comp states there is a tan truck with a topper by the cul-de-sac and has been there for two months, Garfield. Theft, theft of a boat motor, Alex. Harassment, caller says that her ex-husband is calling her and won't leave her alone, has been drinking heavily and she is nervous about what he might do, Alex. Harassment, receiving several text messages from a male that she doesn't know, Alex. Suspicious vehicle, vehicle unoccupied , Alex. 911 hangup, comp called screaming , she then hung up, called back, person one tossed the house according to comp, person one went home for the night, Evansville. Saturday, August 12 Suspicious vehicle, out with vehicle on the side of the road, Alex. Suspicious vehicle, Evansville city maintenance reporting green Ford Expedition unoccupied , there is a purse and a gun case inside the...

Police are seeking a man accused of robbing a couple at gunpoint late Saturday , July 29, in Irvine before firing the gun and fleeing, a police official said. A couple had just unloaded their car and were walking to their apartment when a man approached them and brandished a handgun, spokeswoman Kim Mohr said. The man took jewelry from the couple and then shot at them as he ran away, she said. No one was injured. Around 10:57 p.m., the Irvine Police Department received several 911 calls of gun fire and screaming at the Northwood Place apartments in the 500 block of Hayes, Mohr said. Officers arrived and began searching the area, with a help from an Orange County sheriff ’s helicopter and a K-9 unit, but couldn’t find the man after about a couple of hours, Mohr said. Irvine police released a sketch of the man, described as a black male in his late 20s to early 30s, between 6-foot to 6-foot-2 and weighing about 175 pounds. He has short black hair and dark eyes. He was described as ...

Anneli FogtStaff Writer VICTORVILLE — San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department officials said a man was shot Tuesday afternoon around 2:45 p.m. at the Casa Bella apartment complex in the 16900 block of Nisqualli Road. Scanner traffic reported the suspect, described only as a black man, fled the scene in a black vehicle. The victim was airlifted to a trauma center down-the-hill. Blood was seen on the door of a red Saturn sedan parked in front of the apartment complex 's office, as well on the sidewalk next to the office. A witness at the scene told Daily Press reporters that the red sedan was exiting the complex when the suspect approached the vehicle and began arguing with the victim who was sitting in the front passenger seat . The suspect proceeded to pull out a gun and fire multiple shots into the vehicle, according to the witness. The driver of the red sedan parked the vehicle in front of the complex's office and the victim, who the family said was in his la...

Photo by Andrea Yori | CC BY 2.0 In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington pursued its elusive enemies across the landscapes of Asia and Africa, thanks in part to a massive expansion of its intelligence infrastructure, particularly of the emerging technologies for digital surveillance , agile drones, and biometric identification. In 2010, almost a decade into this secret war with its voracious appetite for information, the Washington Post reported that the national security state had swelled into a “fourth branch” of the federal government — with 854,000 vetted officials, 263 security organizations , and over 3,000 intelligence units, issuing 50,000 special reports every year. Though stunning, these statistics only skimmed the visible surface of what had become history’s largest and most lethal clandestine apparatus . According to classified documents that Edward Snowden leaked in 2013, the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies alone had 107,035 employees and a combined “b...

Regeni was undeterred. Proficient in five languages, he was insatiably curious and exuded a low-intensity charm that attracted a wide circle of friends. From 12 to 14, he served as youth mayor of his hometown, Fiumicello. He prided himself on his ability to navigate different cultures, and he relished Cairo ’s unruly street life : the smoky cafes, the endless hustle, the candy- colored party boats that plied the Nile at night. He registered as a visiting scholar at American University in Cairo and found a room in Dokki, a traffic-choked neighborhood between the Pyramids and the Nile, where he shared an apartment with two young professionals : Juliane Schoki, who taught German, and Mohamed El Sayad , a lawyer at one of Cairo’s oldest law firms . Dokki was an unfashionable address, but it was just two subway stops from downtown Cairo with its maze of cheap hotels, dive bars and crumbling apartment blocks encircling Tahrir Square . Regeni soon befriended writers and artists and practi...