New London church collapse: one year later

Almost one year ago, the skyline in New London was changed in seconds.

“The church just collapsed,” a 911 caller said.  

“The whole church collapsed?” asked the 911 operator.

“It just collapsed. The whole thing,” the caller said.

A surveillance camera captured the moment the steeple of the former First Congregational Church came crashing down on Jan. 25.

And now NBC Connecticut has a new view, showing a side of the historic structure crumbling in the center of the city in the middle of a Thursday afternoon.

“I don’t know if people are in it, but they probably wouldn’t survive if they are,” a 911 caller said.

In fact, someone was inside the church. But miraculously, she was unharmed and took pictures inside the sanctuary right after the collapse.

“The building went in. Had it gone back I may not be here,” Teresa Tymes, of Engaging Heaven Ministries, said.

At the time, the mayor of New London was walking back to City Hall, not far from the site on the corner of State and Union streets.

“What I saw looking down State Street was just a cloud of dust,” Mayor Michael Passero said. “My biggest concern was that somebody was hurt, you know, that people's lives were endangered.”

Also getting reports of trouble was one of the pastors of the Engaging Heaven Church.

It then owned the landmark, which was constructed in the 1800s.

“I was actually at home,” Pastor Desiree Rosado said. “And I got the call and it was, I mean for all of us, it was ‘What?’”

Rosado’s first worry was for the only person who should have been in the church at the time.

“Honestly, I heard a wind,” Tymes said. “And you're like, 'oh, it's wind,' you think nothing of it -- go back to doing my things.”

Tymes worked in the church annex.

The office administrator soon realized the issue was a lot more serious than the weather.

“I go outside and I'm like, ‘Why are all these people’ and they’re yelling. They're screaming. They're dramatic, ‘The building's falling,’" Tymes said.

She walked into the sanctuary, steps from her desk, and captured the damage.

“I was like, ‘Oh, OK, OK, OK.’ Because everything was imploded into the building and you could see the sky through the roof. And I was like, 'OK, OK,'” Tymes said.

Tymes got her things and left as first responders yelled to get out of the building.

She said she was protected and saved that day.

“My faith is even stronger because I'm now -- I'm kind of like almost slightly arrogant about it of like I survived with the building there is nothing my God won't do for me,” Tymes said.

First responders spent hours searching and confirming no one had been trapped in the rubble.

The pastor is thankful it did not turn out very differently, especially if the collapse had happened during a service.

“Nobody was hurt. So I think it was it was a miracle, to be honest,” Rosado said.

We might never know for sure what caused the collapse since no official report was done.

The mayor tells us there’s mention of a possible construction flaw in historical records and engineers speculate that likely might have been behind it.