‘I’m lost;' Man, woman react to losing homes in Dayton apartment collapse

DAYTON — Several people are without a home after a Dayton apartment exploded Tuesday morning.

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Dayton firefighters responded at around 2:19 a.m. to the first block of Parnell Avenue to initial reports of a structure fire.

News Center 7’s Xavier Hershovitz spoke to two people who live in the building. They said they woke up this morning to part of their apartment building exploding.

>> PHOTOS: Firefighters respond after part of building collapses in Dayton

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“I was trying to go back to sleep,” Phillip Kraft said. “Before I knew it, I had my ceiling fall on my forehead.”

Kalie Kitts described hearing a “big bang.”

Firefighters got there shortly after 2:30 a.m. and found two men hurt inside the collapsed apartment.

Dayton Fire District Chief Matt McClain said firefighters saw no visible signs of fire, but debris hit a house next door and spread clear across the street.

“I’m lost,” Kraft said. “Like I’m so mad. I want to cry.”

Now, Kraft and Kitts are trying to figure out what they’ll do next. As reported on News Center 7 at 5:00, the American Red Cross came out to help, but Kitts said it wasn’t going to “help get a new place”

“Rent is not cheap around here. Like, you got to pay deposit, you got to pay last month’s rent. Like, it’s not cheap,” she said.

As if that wasn’t hard enough to go through, Kraft’s beloved dog Little Man went missing after the explosion.

“My dog means more to me than anybody else,” he said.

He’s hoping Little Man just ran off and either makes his way home or is found by someone.

“They’re my babies. I don’t call them dogs, I call them my kids,” he said.

The cause of the explosion is still under investigation.

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