POMPANO BEACH, Fla. – A fire prompted the evacuation of a two-story apartment building early Monday morning in northeastern Broward County.
Firefighters responded to the Royal Atlantic Apartments shortly before 2:45 a.m., near the intersection of Northwest Seventh Avenue and East Atlantic Boulevard, in Pompano Beach.
“We woke up a whole bunch of alarms and a bunch of screaming. I opened my back door and there was a bunch of black smoke,” resident Phylicia Eubanks said. “I tried to go through my room door which was it was worse. Then I just kept screaming ‘I have kids, I have kids!’ Where do we go? Where do we go?”
Peter Lawton said the fire started in his apartment and quickly spread. Pompano Beach Fire Rescue personnel were investigating the cause of the fire.
“I wasn’t smoking, I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t doing nothing,” he said. “The only thing I could do is get the hell out. I got up, put on my pants and the dog was in the bed.”
A spokesperson for the American Red Cross said the fire affected 22 units in the building and 55 people were displaced. A food truck was set up outside the building to serve hot meals to dozens of displaced tenants.
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