(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – Twenty years ago this week, 13 young people died and 57 were injured when porches collapsed behind an apartment building in Lincoln Park.
There was a party at 713 West Wrightwood that had gone late into the night. People were gathered on rear porches on the second and third floors.
The third-floor porch collapsed onto the second floor porch, and both crashed to the ground.
Natalie Brougham told WBBM Newsradio she had been on the third floor.
"I almost went back downstairs, and I got stopped by this guy who was talking to me about life insurance,” she recalled. “I was about to walk downstairs, and I was like, 'Whatever, I'll just hear this guy out.’
"Right then is when it happened."
Those who died had been on the second-floor porch.
It was later determined the porches were not properly built.
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