Resident’s displaced after deadly apartment crash

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – A dumpster truck tragically ran through an apartment building in Cape Girardeau after the driver suffered a medical emergency and passed away on Friday June 27, 2025.

Now more than 10 residents are displaced including children and elderly.

The residents say they had mere minutes to grab what they could as they were being evacuated.

They are staying in a hotel provided by The District of Cape Apartments for now, but they are unsure how long that will last or when their apartments will be safe to reenter.

They are in need of many items as they lost power after the crash and any food they had is now bad.

Some of the tenants have children and some are elderly.

They say donations of prepackaged food that can be made in a microwave in the hotel is need.

Drinks, vouchers, baby wipes, diapers, and help with extended stay at the hotel if needed is also helpful.

Residents of The District are still shaken today after a trash truck came barreling through the building they lived in causing massive amounts of damage and leaving them with uncertainty on where to call home in the upcoming weeks.

Clover and Grey Bockhorst, are tenants at the district they say they had little to no time before the building was evacuated.

“No, time! We spent the whole time trying to get the woman who’s apartment was affected. We had to break her window out to get her out because first responders weren’t there yet” says Bockhorst. “There were two concrete boulders just perfectly placed by her window and you could see the gas just filling in her apartment, so we just knew we had to smash it and get her out of there.” 

They say they grabbed their pets and a change of clothes and quickly evacuated, leaving everything else behind.

Joyce Cunningham, and Debra Plunk, are also tenants at the district.

“We were sitting on the porch I had just said hello and goodbye to the driver and watched him pull away and a few seconds later I heard a boom and then I asked Debbie if the power went out and she said yes and then we started hearing them beat on the door to evacuate” says Cunningham.

“And it felt like an earthquake, and it sounded like a bomb!” says Plunk. “And it wasn’t two minutes, and we were told to get out and we didn’t get to grab anything.” 

Residents tell me about 12 of them are displaced and rang from infants to children to elderly. None of them were able to bring food or many clothing items.

The first couple of days after the incident many of them were homeless or couch surfing and they are having to pay to board their animals. 

“We had to house our pets separately because we couldn’t have them with us because we couldn’t afford out of pocket to pay for it and we did” says Bockhorst. “We made a Facebook post and we got a lot of donations and we were able to get our pets kenneled and we were able for everybody to get food and baby wipes to the moms that just grabbed what they could and left and we’ve gotten microwavable food that you can make to get by, and we’ve gotten clothes from friends.” 

The district has put tenants in a hotel in Cape for now, but residents tell me they are still in need of microwavable food, toiletries, diaper’s, wipes, vouchers, and donations.  

For more information on donating Grey Bockhorst.