April 15, 2003 – At least five people were injured when a tractor-trailer truck backed into a support column of the historic bungalow at Rothschild Francis "Market" Square Tuesday afternoon, bringing the massive roof crashing down onto vendors and shoppers below.
Witnesses said they heard a frightening crash around 5 p.m. as the cast-iron columns supporting the 35 by 80 foot roof gave way to the impact. Several onlookers rushed in to help people caught underneath.
"I just saw the truck hit, and I saw the thing fall," Samer Salem, 21, a clerk at a clothing store a few feet away, said. "I called the police. I told them 'Send everyone! The Market Square has collapsed!'" Salem said he and a co-worker then ran over to help.
Emergency response crews led by Acting Police Commissioner Elton Lewis converged on the scene within minutes as sirens pierced the early evening air. The injured were taken to Roy L. Schneider Hospital.
Jacob Smalls held a pair of eyeglasses belonging to his cousin, Mary Moore, 60, one of those taken to the hospital. Smalls said Moore had been packing up her merchandise at the end of the day when the roof came crashing down. The red Chevy Blazer she was loading her things into was crushed.
"If she hadn't been moving, she would have been dead," Smalls said.
Another person helped from the wreckage was Celestine Derrick, 82. Minutes after the collapse she stood on a nearby sidewalk, apparently unharmed, receiving hugs from friends.
Derrick, who said she has been selling mangoes and bush tea bush at the bungalow for the last 10 years, pointed to the cardboard box of merchandise still nestled below the concrete table where she did business.
"I was sitting there. I saw a big thing pass," Derrick related, and then suddenly the bungalow jerked. "I didn't think he hit it hard enough to make it fall," she said of the truck driver. "I got down under there. A fellow came and carried me out."
Expecting to make her 83rd birthday on Thursday none the worse for wear, Derrick said she would be making her regular visit to church on Wednesday night.
Police cordoned off the market area and posted officers to keep watch. Gov. Charles W. Turnbull, who rushed to the scene, having heard what had happened while en route back to St. Thomas from St. Croix, said the security measures were taken to keep homeless people who sometimes sleep inside the bungalow from getting into the structure.
"This is a terrible misfortune, but it's fortunate that more persons were not damaged," Turnbull said.
Market Square, once the site of slave auctions on St. Thomas, became the center of daily commerce at the turn of the 20th century. It also is the centerpiece of the Savan community, where many of the territory's notables grew up, including Turnbull. A restoration of the bungalow, including a whole new roof, was carried out in 1996.
Tuesday's accident took place little more than two weeks before the annual V.I. Carnival Food Fair, when thousands of people normally converge on Market Square, many of them crowding into the bungalow.
The governor said he expects the V.I. Carnival Committee will have to choose another site for the fair, one of the traditional Carnival highlights. He also pledged that the historic structure will be repaired. "We are going to restore it back to its original condition," he said.

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