DAVENPORT, Iowa — Savannah Strandin, 28, co-owns The Mockingbird on Main in downtown Davenport. It sits right next to the main entrance of the now partially-collapsed apartment on 324 Main Street and is part of the building.
"Honestly, it was hard to believe, being out of town," Strandin told News 8's Collin Riviello. "I was just getting flooded with messages from people, and of course I immediately called my husband, who is also the co-owner of the business."
They both read news reports coming out from local and national media outlets. Unable to enter their theater, Strandin says it took a few days to process but was finally able to accept that they weren't getting their belongings back.
"You know, it was really easy to think we're done, we're done with this dream," Strandin said. "This was our sign that, you know, this is where we're going to hit the stop button."
The Mockingbird on Main is a small theater, according to Strandin, that tries to give aspiring artists in the Quad Cities an opportunity to get their name out.
"We seat around like 35 to 40 people, but we used it as an arts incubator," Strandin said. "So we brought a lot of new works to the Quad Cities, from a lot of local playwrights who wanted to get their art on stage. We really fought for diversity and inclusivity."
Strandin said she and her husband didn't give up on that dream in part because of the support she says they've received from artists who used the theater.
"So many people have reached out and showed love and support, and I did not realize how many lives we had touched with the work we did," Strandin said. "So many people reached out [saying] 'This was our home away from home. This is the space where I felt the safest to be an artist and to be who I am.''"
Despite pouring thousands of dollars into the theater which is now gone, something that dozens of other residents are also experiencing right now, Strandin's heart is still with the victims both known and unknown.
"My initial thought wasn't, 'Oh, no, our business' — it was 'Oh, no, the people who are living there [and] the people who have lost their entire lives [and] the people who are still missing,' and it's heartbreaking," she said.
Strandin arrived back in Davenport on the evening of June 3, finally witnessing the aftermath of the building collapse with her own eyes, six days after the fact.
"I've cried almost every day thinking about it," she said. "Thinking about what people have lost — and not just us. You know, we can start over with our business and we will. As people have been saying, we will rise from the ashes —but everyone else who lived there, they are starting over. Family members are missing their loved ones, and it's not okay."
GoFundMe sent News 8 a verified list of fundraisers for people affected by the building's collapse. To see that list, you can click/tap here.