The Levittown Fire Department evacuated the tenants of the Division Avenue apartment complex on Monday when it was noticed that the northeast wall of the building began leaning. To ensure the safety of the building's occupants, firefighters, led by Chief John Rottkamp, immediately asked residents to vacate the premises, located at 110/112 Division Avenue in Levittown. They were temporarily provided shelter at neighboring Division Avenue High School when school officials immediately stepped in to help. Volunteers of the American Red Cross in Nassau County (ARC/Nassau), who were contacted by Rottkamp, assisted residents at the high school.

The Town of Hempstead was made aware of the situation by the 8th Precinct of the Nassau County Police Department and immediately dispatched building inspectors and public safety officers. Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray and Councilman Gary Hudes, along with staff members, arrived at the site in the mobile town hall, which they used as a base for operations. The owner of the complex and the town had engineers on hand to assess the damage and determine whether or not it was safe for the tenants to return inside.

"The owner's certified engineer made the determination that the northeast corner alone should be evacuated but that the rest of the building was fine for re-occupancy," Murray said, noting that town engineers agreed. She further stated that the town ordered that those three apartments be vacated and dead-bolted, and demanded immediate emergency renovations.

"Those occupants will not be allowed in until we have reinspected the improvements and reconstruction of that portion of the building," she said.

The stranded residents were permitted to temporarily stay at the high school until the building was deemed safe for them to return to their homes. Most were able to return to their apartments that evening. Six residents, who occupy three of the apartments in the complex, were not permitted to return to their homes and received housing at a local hotel, courtesy of ARC/Nassau.

Murray said that she contacted the town's Housing Authority to see if there was emergency housing available (which there was) for the six displaced residents. Fortunately, the owner of the complex had some empty apartments available in another portion of the building (there are 50 available apartments in the complex and 45 are occupied) so the residents could stay close to home. Since the apartments were unoccupied, utilities were turned off so the residents were provided with hotel stay until they could move in.

The supervisor noted that the owner was ordered to put up a construction fence around the back of the building to ensure not only the safety of the building's residents but also local children.

"With a school next door, the safety of our children was of paramount importance to us," Murray said. She also assigned a public safety officer to be at the site to make sure that no students would wander onto the property.

"We are also going to be having our building inspectors there constantly to make sure that the owner is complying with all of our directives and that he's doing all the right renovations that he is required to do," she said. "Until we're satisfied, those apartments will remain dead-bolted. We're now going to of course continuously monitor for compliance with our town code directives to ensure that all the residents are safe."