A woman who escaped the Miami building collapse says a "supernatural" feeling told her she had to flee the apartment, just minutes before it fell apart.
Maria Iliana Monteagudo, 64, moved into her condo in the Champlain Towers apartment complex in December because she liked the building, and the view it had.
On Thursday morning, she woke early with an uneasy feeling.
"It's like something supernatural woke me up. I felt something strange and I thought 'oh I forgot to close the sliding door to the balcony and the wind is making [a] noise," she told The Washington Post.
But when she tried to close the door, it became obvious something was wrong.
"It felt like the building was moving. The door wouldn't close."
Then she heard a crack - and as she watched a crack appeared in the wall, coming down from her ceiling. The crack was about two fingers wide, and Monteagudo says she knew she had to run.
"I ran to my bedroom, and took off my robe and changed into any dress and any sandals. I ran to the dining room table, I got my purse and my credit cards. I took the key, I blew out the candle that I light every night for Guadalupe of Mexico," she told the Washington Post.
She sprinted down the stairs and as she descended she heard the noise of the building collapsing above her.
"It's coming down, down, down like a Domino effect...I was afraid I was going to be crushed."
The Washington Post reports she screamed for God to help her and prayed she would live to see her grandchildren again.
When she finally escaped out a door she stepped into ankle deep water with cables floating in it and a security guard who told her it was an earthquake.
"I said, ‘No, it’s not an earthquake, it’s the building falling down," she told the washington Post
Others are not so lucky - since the building collapsed last week 18 dead bodies have been found in the rubble and 145 are still missing.
State officials have promised an in-depth inquiry into the disaster after a 2018 structural report revealed major defects in the apartment building which were never addressed.
