NEW YORK – One person was killed and at least five others were injured when a parking garage collapsed in Lower Manhattan Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
It happened shortly after 4pm on Ann Street near Nassau Street in the Financial District.
Related stories:
It was a chaotic scene after the garage collapsed in the middle of the afternoon.
“I saw a lot of people, the crowd on the street, fire trucks, police,” said witness Coby Yushanayev.
Authorities said there were six workers in the building at the time of the collapse, and all have been accounted for. One died, four hospitalized in stable condition and the other refused medical attention.
“There was a worker who was trapped on the upper floors. He was conscious and alert and moving around calling us. He just couldn’t get down, and we were able to get the fire department up there in the building and get him out the other side . roof to another building and bring it down safely,” said FDNY Chief of Fire Operations John Esposito.
Our first responders rescued five of our fellow New Yorkers from the partial collapse of a parking garage on Ann Street between Nassau and William. They have been taken to hospital. pic.twitter.com/KQ2p2t5kDJ
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) April 18, 2023
The cause of this collapse will be determined by a forensic engineer, but initial findings show that the weight of the number of vehicles parked on the roof deck, plus the age of the building, contributed to the collapse.
The roof collapsed on the third floor. The pressure on the facade and further instability led to a complete collapse of the pancakes.
“What we observed from the deployed drone, we observed that there is a four-story building completely collapsed, collapsed to the floor of the cellar,” said acting Department of Buildings Commissioner Kazimir Vilenchik.
Vilenchik added, “At this point, I should also mention that there is some active violation in the building, dating back to 2003. But in 2010, an application was filed, which does not indicate that the violation was corrected, but filed. There are active permits in the building, one of which is related to electrical work on the premises.”
“This was an extremely dangerous operation for our firefighters. We responded to a building collapse call, and we had firefighters inside the building, doing searches. The building was still collapsing. We took the decision to remove all of our people from the building,” Esposito said.
With the conditions so dangerous, the only option was sending a robotic dog and a drone to search for people who might have been trapped.
“At this point, we only have one DOA,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “I want to point out that, thank God, we had the robotic dog that was able to get into the building. The ideal is what we’re talking about: not sending a human being into a building that was unstable. We were also able to use the drone technology to give a real view of what’s going on in this building Right now, this building is completely unstable and the boss, we don’t want to send someone in until we can make sure the building is propped up. But using the technology necessary we can have a clear view of what is happening inside the building, for the most part, and do everything we can to see if there are more victims.”
“This was an extremely dangerous operation for our firefighters. We responded to a call of a building collapse. We had firefighters inside the building doing searches. The building was still collapsing. We took the decision to remove all our people from the building. building. Our robotics unit was nearby. They were on the scene very quickly. We deployed our robot dog in the building. They were able to give us a video inside and then we were able to fly our drones inside to conduct an assessment and search,” Esposito said. “At this point, we believe we have the workers who were in danger all accounted for, all out of the building. This structure is very unstable.”
“Almost every floor has collapsed, even using a robot dog could not go to all parts of the building and someone was trapped inside,” said the councilor of Christopher Marte Town Hall.
Members of the FDNY are operating at the scene of a parking garage collapse. The death of 1 person is confirmed and 5 others were transported. Additional searches are underway. pic.twitter.com/wiXQxUrfLy
— FDNY (@FDNY) April 18, 2023
A private company contracted through the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development will demolish the building while FDNY sifts through the debris for possible remains.
Although utilities have been shut down, gasoline in cars inside is a concern. Firefighters are waiting.
“This structure is very unstable. We’ve had — it’s a parking lot — we’ve had some of the slabs, a couple of floors of that concrete slab collapse crushing some of the cars inside,” Esposito said . .
Anastasia Kurylo
Dismantling is expected to take more than a day. The structure remains unstable, so extreme caution must be exercised throughout this process. The first part of this process will be the withdrawal of vehicles.
It is too unsafe for teams to try to enter the garage. Right now, everything is done externally.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said there was “no reason to believe” the incident was anything other than a structural collapse.
Several streets surrounding the parking lot collapse in Manhattan are closed Tuesday evening:
Ann Street between Gold Street Park RowNassau Street between John Street and Beekman StreetDutch Street between John Street and Beekman StreetGold Street between John Street and Beekman StreetWilliam Street between John Street and Beekman Street
The DOB issued a full evacuation order for the following addresses:
49 Ann St., which is an 18-story hotel, 55 Ann St., which is a four-story mixed-use building with four units, and 25-27 Beekman St., which is a six-car parking garage flats.
A partial exclusion order was issued for 157 William St., a 22-story commercial building with 15 units, and 29 Beekman St., a 34-story commercial building with three units.
The next Pace University has been announced two nearby buildings have been evacuated and all classes have been cancelled due to the collapse. Students were allowed to return to their residences Tuesday night.
The Red Cross is on site to help those displaced.
