Last weekend's storm forced dozens of Staten Island residents from their homes after a retaining wall collapsed. NY1’s Amanda Farinacci was there as residents came back to survey the damage.

Fifteen minutes is all residents of Waterview Court were allowed Saturday to gather their belongings -- nearly a week after punishing rains and whipping winds caused the retaining wall behind their waterfront homes to collapse, forcing them to evacuate.

“I am hearing my dog bark, I get up and look and see the backyard collapse,” recalled resident Nina Agapitova.

Residents carried clothing and plants out of their homes, surveying the damage caused by last weekend's storm. Construction crews put up fencing to seal off the area so work on repairing the wall can begin.

Monitors have been placed on the homes to check movement -- and so far, no movement has been detected. Reinaldo Torres says being evacuated is an inconvenience he's taking in stride.

“There's no damage to the houses,” said Torres. “It's just the outside, the retaining wall and a little bit of the patios.”

But no one can locate the builder -- so the city is running the cleanup effort.

The Department of Buildings is working with a local engineering company to come up with a temporary plan to shore up the retaining wall. That work has not begun yet, as the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers have to issue permits for it.

City Councilman Michael McMahon says the wall shouldn't have collapsed in the first place.

“There were no dry walls where they were supposed to be, and you had a builder who didn't do his job and you had a city Department of Buildings, which did not inspect it properly,” said McMahon. “And, thus, you had really just a disaster waiting to happen.”

That's why McMahon has sponsored a bill he believes will help prevent accidents like this in the future.

“What we hope to do in the City Council is introduce legislation that will require that every retaining wall three feet or higher has a post-construction certification by a certified engineer, so we can almost guarantee that it is built properly,” said the councilman.

There's still no word exactly when residents will be allowed back in their homes; and, while they'd like to return sooner than later, they say making sure their homes are safe comes first.

-Amanda Farinacci