ATLANTA — Part of a six-floor parking deck near downtown Atlanta collapsed during the lunch hour Monday, crushing at least 35 cars. Late in the day, there were no reports of injuries, but crews were stabilizing the building so firefighters could search car by car to make sure.
Crews were stabilizing the building with timber supports, and firefighters were preparing to search car by car in the evening.
The deck “pancaked” from the fourth floor to the first level.
More than 50 firefighters rushed to the parking deck around 12:30 p.m., and the bottom level was a “huge mess of vehicles and concrete,” said Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran.
“We’re hoping with all our hearts that we don’t find any people inside,” Cochran said at a news conference.
What caused the 7-year-old structure to collapse was not immediately known. Hardin Construction, the general contractor on the deck, was one of three companies working at the Atlanta Botanical Garden when a pedestrian bridge collapsed in December, killing one worker and injuring 18.
The search of the parking deck was delayed when engineers spotted signs of bolts popping on the other side of the deck, said J.P. Spillane, an Atlanta police official. A handful of welders soon entered to shore up the area. Search dogs were to ready to sniff through the rubble once the building was secure.
Firefighters will tunnel through the debris with listening devices to pick up any noise from possible victims, Cochran said. If no one is found, he said, crews will then do a “more aggressive” search using heavier equipment.
There are 1,415 parking spaces, and about 35 were affected, Hardin Construction spokeswoman Bark ley Russell said in a statement.
“We are just thankful at this point there are no reports of injuries,” Russell said.
