YOUNGSTOWN — With Realty Tower slated for demolition after a gas explosion caused massive damage to the downtown building, tenants who lived there say they are devastated by the decision.

“All we want to do is go home,” said Tracey Winbush, who lived in the Central Square high-rise building for five years. “We probably won’t get a chance to get inside and gather our stuff. It’s up there in a time capsule, suspended in space. I’m just homeless.”

Winbush added: “If you get in there for 30 minutes, you’d be surprised with how much you’d take.”

Winbush has moved to The Gallagher, another downtown apartment building. Winbush was living at Realty with her 94-year-old mother, Susie Page, who was hospitalized after the impact of the explosion injured her. Winbush said she is living in a nursing home, which is not an ideal situation.

Winbush said tenants had safes and strongboxes containing jewelry, money and other valuables, as well as important documents.

“Can we go through the rubble” after it’s demolished? Winbush asked. “We’re just going to leave that there? This could have been handled so much better. This should be all hands on deck. This impacts the revitalization of the Mahoning Valley. This is going to set us back 20 years. It’s bigger than the people in downtown Youngstown. It impacts so many people on so many levels and it shows the weaknesses in our system.”

Deanna Rossi, who lived at Realty with her family for 11 years, doesn’t expect to ever return to her home to retrieve “a lifetime of items in there. We feel blessed that we are safe, but we are broken over what happened. There are so many parts to this challenge, and it makes it overwhelmingly difficult.”

Rossi and her family are staying with her parents while they look for a new home.

As for the demolition, Rossi said, “I love the building more than anyone. I wouldn’t want to see that compromised building hurt anyone in the future. I love it and want it to stay. But knowing it’s not safe and can hurt more people, it has to come down.”

Her son was injured in the explosion.

Rossi has an office at the Huntington Bank Building, across the street from Realty.

“I look at my home and know I can’t go back,” she said. “We can’t go home ever. I can’t crawl up with my favorite blanket and my family. We’ve got to start a whole new life.”

Rossi and Winbush said as of Tuesday there’s been no communication from the Realty owner to the tenants who are losing their homes.

Three other former Realty residents declined Tuesday to comment with one saying he was “not in the state of mind to talk about it.”

NTSB REPORT

A May 28 gas explosion in the basement caused the Chase Bank branch on the first floor of the 13-story building to collapse in multiple areas — killing a bank employee and injuring nine others — and forcing the immediate evacuation of residents of Realty’s 23 apartments as well as the nearby Stambaugh Building, which houses the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel and Bistro 1907.

After getting a structural engineering report showing Realty was in imminent danger of collapsing, the city last Friday also evacuated the nearby International Towers, which houses more than 170 people.

With Realty being demolished — though no time frame has been given — it is not known when residents at International Towers can return or when the Stambaugh Building can reopen.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, provided a preliminary report Tuesday of the explosion, which is similar to information it provided shortly after the explosion.

Just before the accident, a four-person scrap-removal crew, engaged by GreenHeart Companies of Boardman — listed by the NTSB as “partial owner of Realty Tower” — was working in a basement area underneath the building’s sidewalk removing old utility lines and other items, the report states.

The NTSB report states a member of the crew and the GreenHeart site supervisor “indicated they did not have any knowledge that the gas service pipelines in the Realty Tower building basement were in service, transporting natural gas. The crew member stated he used a reciprocating saw to cut into one of the pipes he had been told was ‘dead,’ or not transporting gas, but partway through the process, he heard a loud whistling sound and felt gas blowing into his face from the cut pipe.”

The NTSB report states the agency’s investigation is ongoing. An NTSB official said shortly after the explosion that a final report could take one to two years.

“Future investigative activity will focus on (Enbridge Gas Ohio) the pipeline operator’s procedures and practices for meter removal, record keeping and abandoning gas facilities, ownership of the inactive service line, the companies associated with the Realty Tower building, and GreenHeart operational practices and policies for work crews.”

The Youngstown Board of Control on April 25 approved a no-bid $140,133 contract to GreenHeart to remove utility lines — water, gas, electrical, data and phone lines, sprinkler lines and furnace water tanks — from under the sidewalk in front of Realty and relocate them to the basement.

Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, said the day after the explosion that GreenHeart got the contract because it owns the building.

The NTSB report lists GreenHeart as its partial owner.

GreenHeart’s website lists Realty under its “portfolio of properties,” and Brian Angelili, founder and president of GreenHeart, has said his company operates Realty.

The building’s owner is listed as YO Properties 47 LLC.

Patrick M. Roche, an attorney representing YO Properties, wrote in a Tuesday email that GreenHeart “is not an owner of YO Properties 47 LLC. YO Properties 47 LLC has no additional comment at this time. Please do not contact anyone at YO Properties LLC since it is represented by counsel.”

Meanwhile, Betras Kopp, a Canfield law firm, is preparing to file two lawsuits: one on behalf of people injured in the explosion and one on behalf of Realty residents.

The mother and sister of Akil M. Drake, the bank employee killed in the explosion, filed a wrongful death lawsuit last week against YO Properties, GreenHeart Companies, LY Property Management LLC and several natural-gas companies.

Have an interesting story? Contact David Skolnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.