A county transit bus crashed into a clothing store. That led to an even bigger problem

UPDATE: The bus remained in the building early Monday morning.

Sunday afternoon in Little Haiti started with Miami Fire Rescue workers and structural inspectors figuring out how to move a Miami-Dade Transit bus without a 92-year-old building collapsing.

This dilemma resulted from a morning crash of the bus and a pickup truck at the intersection of Northwest 54th Street and Second Avenue.

At around 9 a.m. the bus, heading north on Second Avenue, collided with a Ford Ranger pickup truck, said Miami Fire Rescue Capt. Ignatius Carroll said. The crash sent the bus careening into Omega Fashions, a clothing store on the first floor of the building at the intersection’s northeast corner.

Worse than damaging any dresses or hats, the bus bashed two support columns of the two-floor building, which was built in 1926.

“One support beam was destroyed and a second significantly damaged,” Carroll said.

Paramedics hustled the two people in the pickup truck to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Seven bus passengers and the driver were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Meanwhile, Carroll said, Miami Fire Rescue’s Technical Rescue Team tried to stabilize the building with a makeshift wall. The bus remained in the building late into the night.

“Structural inspectors are on the scene along with Miami police,” Carroll said. “And they’ll attempt to move the bus out slowly.”

This story was originally published September 16, 2018 at 12:34 PM.