In the basement the 4-by-4 wooden supports, reaching some 16 feet, “were holding nothing. You could flop them in the wind,” Turcio said of the structures whose function it is to support the five floors.

“It was a total team effort,” Turcio said, from finding the damage and evacuating the tenants.

The initial review began Wednesday when Livable City Initiative Inspector Rick Mazzadra came to the building to conduct a regular apartment licensing review, which occurs every three years, and arranged for the building department to come there on Thursday.

Also Wednesday, Mazzadra contacted the property manager, Mendy Katz, who brought in a contractor to do repairs. The contractor then called structural engineer Nic Cuoco to the scene, Turcio said.

Cuoco, in his written report on 66 Norton St., said he found significant deterioration of the first-floor framing and floor sheathing in the bathroom areas.

He wrote that, in most of areas of the building, “the sheathing was completely destroyed. The floor joists were severely notched and/or unsupported and headers were cracked. The cast-iron waste pipes appear to be supporting most of the structural load. As such, they are ‘kinked’ or buckling at the bell-joints,” Cuoco wrote.

The engineer said after reviewing two apartments, he found “floor deformations of approximately six inches in the vicinity of the bathrooms,” and said the building was “structurally unsound and not safe to occupy.”

Turcio commended the actions of the four LCI inspectors who came to the scene. Along with some 20 police officers and several fire companies, the LCI inspectors notified and helped evacuate the tenants to hotels that the landlord, Ernest Schemitsch of Brooklyn, N.Y., has to pay for.

“My inspectors did an awesome job,” Deputy Director of Housing Code Enforcement Rafael Ramos said.

Turcio said these situations are stressful for everyone.

“This is the toughest decision a building official has to do — to empty a building out,” Turcio said.

“We don’t take these things lightly. I saw somebody with a very small baby in a carrier last night. It is a very difficult decision to make,” Dan O’Neill, the deputy building inspector, said.

Turcio said he acted around 3 p.m. Thursday after talking to Cuoco and James Eggert, the assistant building inspector, who was already on the scene Thursday at 2 p.m.

“We walked the cellar and saw numerous areas in deterioration in the structural floor joists. We went upstairs and saw on one of the load-bearing wall lines, the floor sagged six inches. You could feel it walking on it. That is a big red flag,” O’Neill said.

Attorney Ian Gottlieb, who represents Schemitsch, said it is a “fluid situation,” but the company is “doing everything they can do to get everyone re-housed.”

He said they are waiting for the full structural report ordered by Turcio. “Ultimately, it will have to be fixed,” Gottlieb said, referring to the seriously damaged building

Attorney Amy Marks of the New Haven Legal Assistance Association thanked Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, executive director of LCI, for negotiating with the landlord to get $75 to $100 food vouchers from Stop & Shop to the tenants as there is no ability to cook or refrigerate food in the hotel rooms.

“We are delighted that Serena took responsibility for the well being of the families,” Marks said. “We are extremely grateful.”

Stephen Izzo, the former live-in superintendent of the building, lived in the basement with his wife, Lindsey Yeaton, and their 12-year-old son. He said while he was the superintendent, the entire structure concerned him. He said if a person were to put down a bowling ball, it would just roll on its own due to the six-inch dip in all the floors.

“I’m in the basement apartment. Above me is apartment 2, 22, 32, 42 and 52. When someone runs their water, my kitchen has no kitchen ceiling, you could stand there with a bar of soap and take a shower,” Izzo said. “There was a pipe in apartment 52 that went into an old cast-iron, 115-year-old pipe that was cracked … all the way down. It got mold in 42, 32, 22, 2 and my basement.”

He said when they came home Thursday around 3 p.m., “we didn’t see what’s going on in the front of the building. We’re on the other side. All of a sudden, my wife goes, ‘What’s going on?’ She goes in and comes out and says, ‘The building’s condemned.’”

Izzo was one of the tenants staying at the motels who complained earlier in the day that money for food was an issue. “We cook at home. We cook meals. These are families. We don’t have extra money to go out and eat three meals a day,” he said.

Turcio said everything worked as it should have, according to their protocol. “The licensing program caught it. The city worked together on this,” Turcio said.

“This building has been deteriorated for years and years,” Turcio said. “But to get in there and do a full inspection, that can be a problem, to get access.”

Turcio has now ordered a complete structural inspection, which is likely to take three to four days. Given the seriousness of the deterioration, he estimated it could be months before the building is fixed. On Friday, he officially posted a notice of imminent danger and an order to vacate.

Turcio’s order said violations of the building code present an “imminent danger of failure or collapse of the structure and endanger public safety.” This was due to structural deficiences throughout the apartment building necessitating that occupantsy be vacated immediately.

“Portions of the structure are in danger of immediate collapse,” the order read.

Fire Chief John Alston said the Fire Department started evacuating the 38 occupied units Thursday around 3 p.m., and the building was completely empty by 9:30 p.m. Seventy-four people — 52 adults, 22 children and 12 pets — were transported by school buses to three area hotels. Six other residents were staying with family or friends.

Shelly Sutherland, who has lived in the building for about five years, said she, her husband and three children are staying in a cramped room with two double beds at the Three Judges Motel.

She was home sleeping when someone knocked on the door and told her she had one hour to gather everything she may need. “One hour. How are you going to do all that stuff with three kids?” she asked.

She described the living conditions in the apartment as “deplorable,” and said the building is infested with rats and cockroaches. She said her 7-year-old had to go to the Intensive Care Unit three times since December for asthma, and she believes it’s due to the mold in the building.

However, the living arrangements at the motel aren’t much better, she said. Her kids have been crying and are unable to sleep. She said she doesn’t even have the money she needs to buy food.

Before the decision was made to give the tenants food vouchers, Sutherland was among those worrying about food, but there is still no way to heat it.

“My daughter, she drinks a bottle in the morning, but we can’t give her a bottle because there’s no microwave to warm it up,” she said.

Shaquana and Monique Paige, who have lived in the apartment building for more than a year, are in a similar situation with their two kids. Shaquana Paige said the living conditions in her room are “horrible. We can’t even get some hot water in the bathroom. The bed has big holes in it. Big holes.”

Marks hopes the school system arranges for the children in the motels to be picked up on Monday.

She said the permanent relocation plans also have to be monitored. “The tenants have to have a choice of where they are re-located and not to some unsafe property.”

Marks said she did not understand how the many serious problems were not caught earlier by the apartment license program, LCI or the Housing Authority of New Haven which has four federally supported Section 8 tenants in the building.

A review of LCI records shows 129 visits to 66 Norton St. to answer complaints since 1998 with 17 in the last two years. A few were specifically for plumbing problems. Four apartments were labeled as illegal as of Friday.

Karen DuBois-Walton, executive director of the authority, said she would review the records. She said an apartment for an elderly or disabled person is inspected every three years, while others are inspected every two years unless a tenant has a problem that is reported to LCI before the mandated review.

One source gave a colorful description of the serious situation.

“Essentially, someone could have taken a bath like in the movies and ended up on the next floor,” the source said. “The building is over 100 years old. It’s from years and years of water damage [and] at least two fires over the years.”

The source, who has 20 years experience, had never seen a building that close to collapse in New Haven.

Turcio confirmed that there had been fires in the building in 1977, 1978, 1983 and 1996, and some of that damage was visible. It was the plumbing leaks, however, which seem to be the major contributor to the structural damage. He surmised that some of those plumbing repairs had not been permitted or professionally taken care of.

Rick Fontana, the director of emergency management, said the evacuation was orderly.

“Any time you evacuate a large, five-story building with eight units per floor, there would be some trouble or chaotic moments, but it was a very organized evacuation — all departments working together,” Fontana said. “It wasn’t something where we just ran in and started banging on doors and pulled everybody out. We gave people the time to gather their belongings.”

He said they are still trying to figure out the logistics, where renters could come back to get their possessions.

Turcio said the fire alarm seemed to be the only thing in working order.

The building was sold in 2015 by Menachem Gurevitch of Mandy Management, one of the largest landlords in the city, to Schemitsch for $2.5 million.

Marks said it was another example of an out-of-state investor preying on low-income tenants by not investing in or maintaining their buildings. “There should have been a lot of checks and balances,” she said. “This problem lingered for years and ended in a crisis.” Marx said it is not an isolated incident.

The building official said they do not come in to inspect when a building changes hands.

“We don’t have a retroactive code,” he said. Once a certificate of occupancy is issued, “we are out of the picture and it becomes a fire marshal responsibility. If they flag some structural problems, we will get called back,” O’Neill added.

Turcio said if a tenant has a problem, they should call LCI. “If they (LCI inspectors) see something serious, they call us right away,” he said.

Turcio expected to see a police presence at the building to protect the tenants’ possessions and make sure no one enters the apartments.

Ramos said the owner at this point is cooperating and understands he will be responsible for the cost of the relocations, which LCI will monitor. If there are problems finding permanent housing replacements, LCI will step in.