Gertrude Young was winding down her workday at Perry Real Estate on Tuesday when she heard a loud boom down the hall, followed by a knock on the door.

“I was sitting in my office further down the hallway when I heard this big noise,” Young said. “And then Mr. (Ronnie) Muirhead comes knocking on the door asking me if I was the owner. He said, ‘My truck just ran into your building.’”

A dump truck owned by River City Roll-Offs, that was hauling debris from a construction project at The Vicksburg Hotel, rolled through a parking lot between that building and Perry Real Estate at 1207 Walnut St. around 4:30 p.m.

The truck smashed through a cinderblock wall of the real estate office and left a gaping hole in the side.

The cab of the truck extended more than a foot into the building.  A front office and break room were heavily damaged. Roberta Perry, who owns the building, said repairs could take months, but fortunately the building was mostly empty, and no one was injured.

“I’m just glad nobody was hurt,” Perry said.

The front office is where Daniel Jennings operates his tiny home construction business, Cottage Home King. No one was there when the accident occurred, which was fortunate. The front of the truck came to rest just inches behind a desk where Jennings’ daughter Keanu normally sits.

“I wasn’t here. Thank God my daughter wasn’t here; she was out running errands,” Jennings said.

The renovation of the nearly century-old Vicksburg Hotel, a landmark in the city located at the corner of Clay and Walnut streets, has been going on for weeks. Perry Real Estate is on Walnut Street, and a sloped parking lot about 100 feet wide separates the two buildings.

Workers have used it as a staging area and were apparently loading debris into the dump truck’s bin when the load shifted, and it started rolling downhill into Perry’s building.

“They’ve been working on the building. Which wasn’t a problem until this,” Jennings said with a chuckle.

Young was the only person in the office. She was startled and said she’s never been part of something like this incident.

“Hopefully that’s the first and last time,” she said. “I was scared because I didn’t know what that was. I just knew it was loud. You hear them all the time over here, with what they’re doing, but it hasn’t been as loud as it was.”