Staff file photo Crews begin cleanup outside the Chase Bank offices in downtown Youngstown in the immediate aftermath of the May 28, 2024, explosion at the Realty Tower.

YOUNGSTOWN — Alanjuwon Daniels had been working as a relationship banker in the downtown Youngstown Chase Bank branch in the Realty Tower for about three weeks when a co-worker knocked on the glass of the room where he was participating in a conference call and told him to “get out.”

“She knocked on the glass and said, ‘We have to get out,'” Daniels said. It was May 28, 2024. “At that moment, that’s when I stood up, and I was very lightheaded, wasn’t really sure why. So I did what I knew had to be done, so I hurried up and tried to leave the entrance,” he told investigators last year.

He walked from there until the explosion. “I took two steps, and the rest is still a little foggy for me,” he said. “I do remember vividly … the feeling of weightlessness, being in the air. And then I felt a hard crash to the ground,” he said.

He actually was not hitting the ground, he told officials with the National Transportation Safety Board. “It was the side of the wall.” The floor beneath him was gone as a result of a natural gas explosion in the basement. “I was pretty much hanging on,” possibly to a beam “that was giving me that support from going into the basement,” he said.

Daniels was one of seven bank employees who were in the bank when it exploded about 2:44 p.m. that day after a contract worker in the basement cut a natural gas line he and others thought was safe to remove and quickly realized the line still had gas in it.

Daniels said he had no idea how far down the drop would have been if he had fallen into the basement. “But I know that if I would have took any step right or left, I was falling down. I was coughing up a lot of black tar, stuff like that, and there ended up being glass and debris all over embedded into my arm, into my shoulder, into my knee,” he said.

“I remember very vividly somebody screaming, ‘We need to get out.’ And at this point, no one knows where they’re at. Everybody is scattered. There’s a lot of heavy smoke, and I just hear ambulances and the fire department.”

Daniels said that is when an ambulance worker pulled him out of the building, placed him near the street, and he was taken away in an ambulance.

The branch’s manager, Chuck Worley, who got out of the building fairly quickly as Daniels did, was taken to the hospital at the same time, Daniels said. Daniels told the NTSB that he did not remember smelling natural gas that day. He noticed construction noises in the building, though he could not tell where it was coming from, he said.

Daniels said he had spoken to fellow employee Akil Drake that day. He and Drake were about the same age, knew each other at Youngstown State University and started at the bank at about the same time, Daniels said.

“He was actually one of the main reasons why I took the opportunity of going to the Youngstown branch,” Daniels said.

Drake, 27, of Youngstown, died in the explosion.

10 VICTIMS

Among the investigative documents the NTSB released this week as part of its still-not complete investigation into the explosion was a report on the victims. The document provided details on each of the eight bank employees who were there, including one who warned Daniels and got out before the 13-story building exploded.

She was in the parking lot at the back of the building when it exploded, but still suffered minor injuries. Two of the remaining seven workers suffered serious injuries and four suffered minor injuries, including Daniels, the report states. Only one of the eight Chase workers was not listed as injured.

Two other people suffered minor injuries — a resident of a second-floor apartment in the Realty Tower and one worker at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel next door, it states.

Cameras inside and outside of the bank captured the movements of all eight Chase employees, including Daniels, who was seen sitting in a glass-walled work space when a female employee knocked on the glass and waved at him at 2:43:12 p.m., about a minute before the explosion. Daniels, who was identified in the document as “victim 3,” turned his chair, opened the door to the room, spoke with Drake and watched the female employee “fleeing the building,” the document states.

The same camera showed Daniels traveling through a locked security door and talking to Chuck Worley, the branch manager, before walking toward the back of the building as the explosion occurred.

Drake, meanwhile, was captured on an interior ATM camera at 2:43:15 coming to the front of the bank from the back. He encountered a female teller who “provides instructions” to him, and he hurried to speak to a male employee in a glassed office, the document states. A camera showed Drake and the other male speaking to a different female employee just before she exited the building through the rear exit door, it states.

Drake returned to the front of the bank with his shirt over his mouth and nose as he walked toward the front entrance door, placing his hand on the push bar to exit as the explosion occurred, causing him to fall into the basement on the west side of the building, the NTSB document states.

Daniels was found standing on an exterior structural support beam, which “allowed emergency responders to extricate him quickly from the building,” it states. Daniels told investigators he thought he was near the rear of the building.

The document states that Worley was able to get himself out of the basement using a ladder that was used by Youngstown firefighters at the northwest corner of the building. It is the same area where Youngstown firefighter Tommy Gibbs put Chase employee Caroline Pizarro onto his back in the basement and carried her up the ladder, where she was handed off and taken away from the building with serious injuries.

The rescue was captured on the body camera of Joe Hamilton, a Mahoning County Sheriff’s deputy.

The Vindicator captured photos of Worley sitting at the base of the Man on the Monument statue in front of the Realty Tower covered in dust and blood within about six minutes of the explosion. Multiple people stopped to offer him aid, including a woman who gave him a bottle of water.

The bank cameras captured a female teller identified as “Victim 4” a couple of minutes earlier than the other workers– 2:40 p.m. — about four minutes before the explosion. She and another female teller left the area behind the teller’s window and exited the bank at 2:40 p.m. “Victim 4” walked down the sidewalk in front of the bank to the south. She returned to the bank and went back inside slightly after her fellow teller did.

Then “Victim 4” walked toward the bank manager’s office, then exited his office and encountered Drake walking from the rear of the bank to the front. She spoke with Drake, then returned to the teller’s counter.

At 2:43:21, Victim 4 retrieved her purse and backpack and “appears to be trying to detect an odor” before walking toward a handicap-accessible bathroom toward the back of the bank, where she was standing when the explosion occurred, the document states. Firefighters later rescued her from the “partially collapsed” first floor. The document does not indicate that she suffered any injuries.

Just before the explosion, the other teller, identified as “Victim 7,” retrieved her phone and walked toward the bathroom area. Family members notified emergency responders of her location near the bathroom in the rear portion of the bank about 14 minutes after the explosion, the document states. She apparently was rescued. She suffered minor injuries, the document states.

A male bank employee, “Victim 6,” was first captured on video walking westbound on East Federal Street past the Realty Tower and stopping at the back of the building to talk to a female bank employee who had just exited the bank. The female employee walked away about 30 seconds before the building exploded and walked to the rear of the building’s parking lot. That is where she was at the time of the explosion, the document states.

Meanwhile, the male employee walked toward the back of the building and entered the rear door using a key and was just inside when the explosion occurred.

He suffered serious injuries. The woman he passed on the sidewalk suffered minor injuries and was treated at the hospital and released.

“Victim 8,” the woman who was in the rear parking lot at the time of the explosion, was standing at the rear door of the bank at 2:43 p.m. when she encountered one of the workers who had just come from the basement after their crew had cut the natural gas line.

After speaking with the man, she quickly re-entered the building and knocked on the glass, waved at Daniels, then left the bank out the rear door, the document states.

She spoke briefly with the co-worker she had spoken to earlier outside, then walked to the rear parking lot, where she was last seen when the explosion occurred.

There were also two other victims who did not work at Chase Bank.

A hotel worker at the DoubleTree by Hilton across Federal Street from the Realty Tower was working on the second floor of the hotel when he fell while trying to flee just after the explosion and was injured.

The last victim was a resident in a second-floor apartment in the Realty Tower who was rescued by firefighters using a ladder at 3:26 p.m. She was treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

POOR CONSTRUCTION

Though the NTSB investigation into the explosion is not yet complete, the document suggests that a factor in Drake’s death may have been poor construction of the floor below the main entrance to the bank where Drake was apparently preparing to exit when the explosion occurred.

The entrance was built over a “void space” created when a stairwell below was removed at some unspecified earlier time, the report states. “The blast likely caused the basement walls, directly underneath this section of the floor to shift and allow the improperly secured floor to collapse into the basement,” the report states.

Investigators found that in the original building design plans dated 1923, the front door area of the bank was originally a doorway to a business that had stairs leading down to another commercial space in the basement, the document states.

Sometime between 1923 and 2006, the door and stairwell were removed and the floor was placed over the void space, the report says. The floor appeared to be insufficiently anchored in place, it adds.

WORKERS

Cameras at the Realty Tower also captured the movements of the workers who cut the natural gas line in the basement. The footage showed the workers “appeared agitated and panicked at 2:39 p.m,” the document states. They “hastily throw items into the bed of the pickup truck, other items dropped or left on the ground.”

“Several workers begin running on foot away from the building. One worker gets into the truck and drives towards the parking lot exit without shutting the driver’s side door,” the document states.

At 2:40 p.m., one worker “turns around and walks toward the building,” the document states. “Another camera angle shows the worker pounding on the window of the bank to get the attention of the bank employees.” The worker also made a call on his cellphone. And at 2:42:46, he returned to the building and “begins running along the side of the bank,” the document states. A “female bank employee is seen on a cellphone at the open rear door to the bank,” and moments later, she spoke to the worker.

She is apparently the employee who went in the bank after that and banged on the glass of the room where Daniels was sitting and advised him, “We have to get out.”

911 CALLS

The document also states that the Youngstown 911 center received a call from the fire-alarm monitoring company at 2:40:25 p.m. regarding a fire-alarm activation of a pull station in the rear parking lot of the Realty Tower. Another dispatcher received a call for a gas leak about the same time.

The Youngstown Fire Department arrived at the Realty Tower at 2:46:28, just after the Realty Tower exploded. The first three victims were rescued from the bank at 2:50 p.m., and a third employee was rescued at 2:52 p.m., the document states.

Youngstown Fire Captain Tommy Gibbs told The Vindicator that as his truck headed toward the Realty Tower, “I could see what I thought was smoke filling the downtown area. At that point, we could see we had something of significance. As we approached downtown, you could just see the devastation, police just running everywhere. There were a lot of people during the initial response.”

ELECTRICITY, WATER

Ohio Edison was first requested to the scene at 3:06 p.m. The Youngstown Water Department was requested at 3:16 p.m. At 3:20 p.m., the fire department reported that the water in the basement of the Realty Tower was “thigh high,” and “electricity is still on,” the NTSB document states.

The water to the basement was off at 3:35 p.m., and the natural gas to the building was off at 3:37 p.m.

At 4:19 p.m., Ohio Edison reported that its crew could not get past emergency vehicles and left, the document states. No supervisor was available to expedite Ohio Edison’s return to the scene, the document states.

About 4 p.m., Chase Bank representatives told first responders that six Chase Bank employees were at the bank at the time of the explosion, three male and three female.

First responders did a head count, and it matched: They had transported three males and three females to the hospital, the document states.

However, at 4:19 p.m. bank employees reported that a seventh employee — Drake — was missing. So the search and rescue mission in the building began again, the document states. The FBI assisted in pinging Drake’s cell phone, which indicated that he was in the building, the document states.

“Additional searches were conducted with drones and visually,” the document states. Firefighters attempted to re-enter the Realty Tower at 4:45 p.m. to find the seventh employee but they were “forced to discontinue the search due to high water and electricity,” the document states. Ohio Edison arrived at 5:13 p.m., and power was shut off at 6:25 p.m.

The report documented calls from the Youngstown 911 center to Ohio Edison at 3:15 p.m, 4:50 p.m., 5:10 p.m., as recorded by the Ohio Edison Distribution Control Center. A call from an FBI agent to Ohio Edison was made at 5:16 p.m. regarding the power at the Realty Tower, which resulted in a return call to the Youngstown 911 center from Ohio Edison at 5:28 p.m.

The document stated that the Realty Tower basement filled with water because of a rupture of the water main caused by the explosion. The “rising water enhanced the dangers faced by the emergency responders because the building was still under power,” the document states.

OTHER CHALLENGES

The document noted communications challenges between first responders and dispatchers. Prior to the incident, emergency response agencies used an analog radio system, which allowed 911 dispatchers to monitor on-the-scene activities and alert the incident commander to potential safety issues in a timely manner, the report states.

But when Youngstown converted its radio system to digital to provide a more secure communications system, it prevented the dispatchers from being able to hear and communicate with first responders on the scene, the report states.

A partial solution was reached that allowed the dispatchers to hear what was happening at the scene but not communicate directly with the first responders at the scene. The fire department then required all command officers to carry two radios. But during the initial search operation at the Realty Tower, the safety officer dropped his second radio and was not able to recover it. It required others to relay information to him that he would otherwise not have been able to receive, the report states.

Firefighters also discovered that the fire alarms in the Realty Tower were so loud that it was difficult for victims to hear emergency responders calling out to them. The loud sirens also made it difficult for firefighters to hear each other, the report states.

BANK GUIDELINES

An internal review by Chase Bank of the episode indicated that its employees “were provided with the required training and that the employees followed Chase Bank’s guidelines regarding the emergency evacuation of the premises,” the document states. “After reviewing the circumstances, Chase Bank has revised its emergency guidelines to emphasize the need for employees to leave the premises whenever the presence of gas is detected or reported,” the document states.

OHIO EDISON

The document states that Ohio Edison found that the training Ohio Edison workers received “did not specifically address the need or method for employees to coordinate with external incident commanders during various incidents,” the NTSB report states.

“First Energy-Ohio Edison has implemented a plan to improve future response to emergencies,” the report states. Those changes include emphasizing the “importance of communications and proactive coordination with external incident commanders when no specific work order has been given,” the NTSB document states. The president of Ohio Edison ordered implementation of the changes starting this June.

As for the delayed response at the Realty Tower, the company said it initially sent what it calls a “trouble man” to the scene, but he was a “lineman and would not have gone to the (Realty Tower) because the issue was not with an overhead line. In this instance, the worker went to a substation to provide support to the substation crew,” the report states.

“Upon arrival the trouble man did not encounter the crew at the substation and did not attempt to contact the crew by phone. The trouble man advised that he assumed that the substation crew had responded to the scene, and he waited at the substation for further instructions,” the report states.

After the crew was re-dispatched to the Realty Tower, they encountered delays in accessing the equipment needed to remove the electrical power from the Realty Tower. One was that a portion of the electrical system grid was in the federal courthouse building down the street. This required gaining access to the building through security officers protecting the building, the NTSB document states.

Another was that a vehicle was allowed to park next to the transformer pad mount in the parking lot behind the Realty Tower, so utility workers had to wait for the vehicle to be removed before accessing the transformer, it states.