After his life was upended by a falling crane last month, all Jim Peabody wants is a letter.

He wants a document from the apartment company that owns Elan City Lights declaring everything inside his unit a "total loss," he said. That piece of paper would allow Peabody to file an insurance claim for everything he left behind — and look to the future.

Jim Peabody fled his apartment June 9 along with 500 other residents when a tower crashed onto Elan City Lights. (Shaban Athuman / Staff Photographer)

“They will never hear from me again,” he said. “I'll go away, get my stuff replaced, and we'll continue to move on.”

Peabody, along with more than 500 other residents of the apartment complex just east of downtown Dallas, was sent scrambling from his home June 9 when a crane from a construction site across the street toppled over during a summer storm.

The collapse was fatal — 29-year-old Kiersten Smith was killed just months before she was set to marry her fiance. The accident sent five other people to the hospital and left some apartments destroyed.

More than a month later, residents whose apartments were undamaged say they remain in limbo — unsure whether they should start over or keep waiting for their cars and other belongings to be returned.

Many still don't have a clear timeline for when that may happen. Some have had to buy new vehicles. Some have moved into new apartments but don’t have furniture. Others can’t yet afford a new place to live, so they’re biding their time staying with family members.

In response to questions about residents' complaints, a spokeswoman for Greystar, the company that owns the apartments, shared a statement it sent to tenants Friday afternoon. It says property items in the 184 units not affected by the crane collapse will be inventoried beginning Monday, the date the company had initially said packed-up belongings would be ready for residents to pick up.

The letter provides no definitive timeline for when that may now be but says the inventory process will be "necessarily detailed and time-consuming."

The company also provided no timeline for tenants' access to damaged apartments or retrieval of their belongings from them.

"Engineers, crane specialists, and recovery contractors have been on site over the past few weeks assessing the plan for the removal of the collapsed crane once [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration] and other investigators have completed their work," the letter to residents reads. "Until the investigations and the assessments by these experts are completed, we cannot provide a timeline for recovery of resident belongings within the impacted zone."

A spokesman for OSHA said the agency is not in charge of deciding when residents or anyone else can access their units — that's up to the apartment company, he said. The agency also does not decide when or how the crane will be removed.

A spokeswoman said Friday that Greystar was working "along with government officials for the expedited, efficient and safe removal of the crane." The letter to residents said a plan to remove the crane was "still in progress."

Bigge Crane and Rigging Co., the company that leased Greystar the crane that fell, declined to comment. The company said in a previous statement that high winds were to blame for the collapse and that its operator had followed procedure.

OSHA has completed 20 crane inspections in Dallas since 2014, but none involved tower cranes like the one that fell through the Elan City Lights building, the OSHA spokesman said.

A crane remains embedded in the Elan City Lights apartment complex in Dallas on Friday. The crane fell during a major storm last month on June 9. (Lynda M. Gonzalez / Staff Photographer)

Peabody, 71, was in his apartment June 9 when he felt what he thought was an earthquake, then heard alarms going off. He left his dog, Cheyenne, inside as he peeked in the hallway to investigate. Shortly after, a police officer told him to evacuate immediately. It was four hours before he could go back for Cheyenne and his keys, wallet and medication.

Since then, Peabody has found a new apartment, and friends have lent him spare furniture to use while he waits to learn whether he’ll get his belongings back.

But he said he’s also lost 20 pounds from stress since the collapse.

“My health has definitely suffered from this,” Peabody said. “I'm not sleeping well at night. My stress levels are very, very high. My blood pressure's out of control.”

Peabody said he went to the Greystar offices in Irving to try to get a "total loss" letter that he could take to his insurance company to file a claim. A manager initially offered to help him, he said, but all he got back was an email with a copy of the latest update to residents.

“This is the bottom line: I don't want to make a living off of anybody,” Peabody said. “I want my letter. I want the insurance company ... to pay my claim.”

‘They left us to fend for ourselves’

Brijanae Page, 25, had lived at Elan City Lights with her husband and mother for a few months before the crane fell. Now all three are living at Page’s grandmother’s house in Mesquite. That has stretched her 10-minute commute to work into nearly an hour.

Page’s car is stuck inside the parking garage, so she and her husband are getting by with sharing one car and carpooling with friends.

In the meantime, she said, it feels like the apartment company has forgotten about her and other residents.

“They left us to fend for ourselves right after it happened," Page said. "I’m in no position to try to start over."

Isaiah Allen, a resident of the damaged apartments, holds onto a dog, Princess, as he watches officials respond to a scene after a crane collapsed into Elan City Lights apartments in Dallas on Sunday, June 9, 2019. (Shaban Athuman / Staff Photographer)

Isaiah Allen, 24, said he has been living with family in Flower Mound since the collapse. He hasn't found another Dallas apartment in his price range, he said. Allen, who had a rental car trapped in the garage, paid $78 per day for the rental for two weeks before the agency stopped charging him.

He's considering legal action, he said.

"I was in the apartment complex when it happened, and I think that people need to be held accountable for the things that they do," he said. "I would understand if it was a freak accident, but something happened there that wasn’t supposed to happen."

Jennifer Gonzalez, 31, had to buy a new car after her insurance company stopped providing a rental so she could make the 40-mile drive to work in Midlothian each day. This week, she was still living in an Airbnb while she waited for her move-in date for a new apartment next week.

She wants her belongings back, but more than that, she wants clarity.

"Is it going to be 30 days? Is it going to be six months? Is it going to be never?" she said.

‘Getting the runaround’

Austin Adams was lucky to have been running behind June 9 while returning home from a visit to his grandmother in Brownwood. Had he left her house on time, his car would have been trapped in the parking garage.

When the crane fell, Adams, 25, was about a week and a half away from moving into a new apartment in northeast Dallas. The new place is mostly bare — there’s a rug, a cat tower, two bar stools and a few folding camping chairs.

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“I don't have any furniture here because I want to hold out,” Adams said. “I don't want to spend a grand on a couch and find out I get my couch back and it's perfectly fine. I don't want that. It's not a necessity right now.”

After sleeping on an air mattress for a few weeks, Adams said he caved and bought a new bed. His cat, Stevie, loves having more room to roam. But Adams wants his things back — his furniture, along with five guitars and his grandpa’s Vietnam jacket.

Because Adams can’t prove his belongings are damaged — his apartment was not affected by the collapse — he said his insurance company has told him it can’t compensate him.

While other residents have contacted lawyers to help either get their belongings back or get reimbursed for their losses, Adams said that’s not what he wants.

“I don't want litigation,” he said. “I don't want this dragging on for years. I just want my stuff back and to move on from this.”

But in the meantime, Adams is “stuck in limbo,” he said, unsure of what to do. When residents ask for updates, they don’t get a straight answer, he said.

“We're getting the runaround from the property management company and OSHA,” he said. “Greystar is pointing the finger at OSHA, and OSHA is pointing the finger at Greystar.”

Business impact

Rudy Hetzer, who owns Dallas Tattoo and Arts Co., said road closures necessitated by the crane collapse have hurt his business. Where he’d normally see six to 12 walk-ins a day, now that number is closer to four, he said.

Even people who’ve made appointments for a tattoo seem to struggle to find his shop at 2712 Live Oak St., Hetzer said.

“When they get off the interstate, they're directed left, right and all sorts of ways around the shop,” he said.

He said it’s frustrating to see construction work continue at The Gabriella, the Greystar property where the fallen crane once stood.

A Greystar spokeswoman said construction at The Gabriella resumed this week.