No one injured in deck collapse at Santa Rosa apartment building

A deck collapsed overnight at an apartment complex on Corby Avenue rendering two apartments uninhabitable, Thursday, March 15, 2012.

Two Santa Rosa families were evacuated from their Corby Avenue apartment building Thursday morning after an upstairs deck collapsed in the early morning hours, fire personnel said.

No one was injured, and the families were never at immediate risk.

But the wood-construction deck served as the only entrance and exit for one of the families, and their apartment has been red-tagged as uninhabitable by the Sonoma County building department, Santa Rosa Fire Battalion Chief Jack Piccinini said.

Those living in the apartment below them also were told evacuate because the damaged deck is right above their entry, he said.

Piccinini said he hoped the deck could be shored up quickly and the families permitted to return. The American Red Cross is providing emergency housing for a few days in the meantime, he said.

The roughly 10-by-15-foot deck apparently had been rotting out without anyone noticing until a large portion of it gave way around 4:30 a.m. Thursday, upsetting plants, a barbecue, a bicycle and the like, and creating a racket that awakened those sleeping inside, Piccinini said.

One point of the deck is collapsed, he said. It's still attached to the building, but it's sagging dramatically.

The residents were told to stay inside and stay safe until the morning, when firefighters returned to guide them out safely after they had collected enough belongings to get them through a couple of days.

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No one injured in deck collapse at Santa Rosa apartment building