South Austin house collapse caused by straight line winds, 1 person killed

AUSTIN, Texas - Officials say that one person has died, and another person was injured after a house collapsed in Austin.

Why did the house collapse in South Austin?

The backstory:

Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services says it responded to the 12000 block of Salvador Street on August 27 at around 4:23 p.m. for reports of a structural collapse with two people trapped under the rubble.

ATCEMS says one person was pulled from the rubble at around 5:15 p.m. and taken to Dell Seton Medical Center by STAR Flight with potentially serious injuries.

Another person was pronounced dead at the scene.

Dig deeper:

Travis County Emergency Services District 5 says it received a call at about 4:20 p.m. in regard to two people trapped underneath a house that was under construction.

Officials say the area had experienced what the National Weather Service was calling 50 to 70 mph straight-line winds.

Four workers were working on the house at the time of the storm when the house collapsed on them.

Two workers got out safely and the other two did not.

The entire house collapsed, including the second floor, trapping the workers.

The person was pulled from the rubble was found breathing and pinned underneath the framework of the house.

What they're saying:

Officials say a neighbor next to the house reported that winds were "intense" and that the trees were blowing sideways.

The neighbor said she heard a loud boom, which was the house collapsing next to her.

Fire Chief Chris Barron with Travis County ESD 5 says the roof collapsed onto what was the second floor, which then collapsed onto what was the first floor, which was a lot of weight that first responders had to push up.

"We have to stabilize the house with different techniques, airbags, struts, cribbing, so that when we send the rescuers in, they're safe too, right, safety is our number one priority, so they were able to stabilize a house about 40 minutes into the event," he said.

He says the worker who died at the scene was a 38-year-old man. 

"Unfortunately, they lost a family member because it was a family that was working on this house. It was three brothers and then a son that were doing the framing of this house," he said.

Crews had to wait to pull out the body because a second storm came through. 

"Austin Fire [Special] Ops ended up deciding to use these ginormous airbags to basically lift the house up enough, the flooring of the house of the second floor, up enough to get it off the patient, and then we were able to pull the patient out and turn [him] over to the medical examiner," he said.

Barron says they didn't get any other calls about downed trees or other damage during the storm, but this is the most severe collapse he's seen in this career.

"This is a very specific, very specialized training. This is not a every week type of event, right? That's why we have special teams that go to special training for these type of events. They do engineering classes. They do structural collapse classes," he said. 

There are only a few houses on the street. Neighbor Alexa Violante says she only heard the storm, then helicopters and sirens.

"I heard some sirens and then the second I stepped outside it was just like a whole scene, multiple fire rigs, EMS, everything. It was a very, very active scene and then I started looking around to see what happened and then I saw the house just in shambles," she said.

She says when she found out there was a fatality, "Oh my God, my heart sank, it just feels, I know this is a new community, but this feels like a part of my community. It feels like death that's hitting closer to home, and it's a couple of houses down from where I live too. Super anxious, super sad for everyone involved," she said.

South Austin