Part of a Parking Deck in Atlanta, Ga. collapses...

[The Prowler]

Searchers enter collapsed Midtown parking deck
No injuries yet reported; police dogs will help search
By Megan Matteucci, Larry Hartstein

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, June 29, 2009

Firefighters will soon begin a thorough search, with police dogs, of the Midtown parking garage that partially collapsed at lunchtime.

By 6 p.m. engineers will have stabilized the concrete structure enough to make the search possible. An initial search of the portion that collapsed, damaging 35 cars, turned up no injuries.

Four stories of the Centergy Parking garage in Midtown collapsed early Thursday afternoon.

A middle section of the Centergy parking garage, located at Abercrombie Place and Spring Street, collapsed from the fourth floor down at about 12:20 p.m., officials said.

“There was a pancake effect all the way down to the ground floor,” Fire Department spokesman Bobby Stewart said.

The garage, about one block north of 5th Street, houses cars for several businesses, including L.A Fitness, RBC Bank and Georgia Tech. It has 1,415 parking spaces.

Stewart said he expects “a 24-hour operation” and that it could be two days before workers are allowed to retrieve their cars.

“It’s just a huge mess of vehicles and concrete,” Cochran said.

The overall structure is intact, as is the entrance to the deck where parking attendants work.

OSHA and fire investigators are looking into the cause of the collapse.

Firefighters from Atlanta, DeKalb and Cobb counties are rotating shifts because of the heat. Employees from the Cheetah handed out water and fruit to emergency crews.

Shaun Dodson was sitting in his truck on the third floor of the parking deck eating lunch when he heard a loud noise.

“The whole deck started shaking and I just ran out,” he said.

Chad Parker had just worked out at L.A. Fitness and was getting items from his car on the third floor when the building started to shake.

“It sounded like a big dump truck was dumping a load full of rock,” he said. “All this dust started falling and the parking attendant came running and told everyone to get out.”

He could later see the front windshield of his Nissan intact, though he doesn’t know about the rest of the vehicle.

Candice Crossfield, who works at Electric Cities of Georgia, entered the parking deck moments after the collapse — unaware of what had just happened.

She walked up to her car on the fourth floor and that’s when she saw a big, gaping hole.

“I said ‘Oh my God,’” she said. “It was an amazing sight.”

She daringly walked up to the edge of the hole, near a car with two wheels dangling over the edge, snapped a photo with her cellphone and called her boss. Late for a lunch appointment, she drove out of the garage, exiting at street level on the third floor.

It was only then that she realized, “This whole thing could go down.”

Tricia Baker was on her lunch break at a nearby restaurant when her boss called to check on her. She then remembered she had parked her BMW on the 4th floor of the deck, near the middle, she said.

“I’m so glad I wasn’t inside my car,” she said.

At 2:05 p.m. Paul Freet, who works for Georgia Tech’s VentureLab unit, tweeted: “Our group is now all accounted for. Whew!”

Earlier, Freet reported via Twitter that he believes his car is destroyed because he had parked very near the collapsed section.

Anita Bass, who works in the adjacent building at Interface Flor, said she didn’t hear the collapse around the corner, but was alerted by emergency crews flooding the area.

She parked on the fifth floor.

“It is mind boggling,” she said. “My mind is racing. Will it continue to fall?”

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/06/29/collapse_parking.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

[Tarheel]

I heard about this earlier today; I was trying to remember who the General Contractor was that built this deck because it's fairly new.

Glad to have heard that no one has been hurt.

Thought that this was interesting; and probably kept the emergency crews motivated:

...
Employees from the Cheetah handed out water and fruit to emergency crews.
...

[The Prowler]

I heard about this earlier today; I was trying to remember who the General Contractor was that built this deck because it's fairly new.

Glad to have heard that no one has been hurt.

Thought that this was interesting; and probably kept the emergency crews motivated:

no one has been hurt, yet.  Since it collapsed around lunch breaks, I'm hoping that everyone was out of the parking deck, or atleast away from that side of collapse.

[Tarheel]

no one has been hurt, yet.  Since it collapsed around lunch breaks, I'm hoping that everyone was out of the parking deck, or atleast away from that side of collapse.

Likewise, of course.  I hope the project engineer has paid up his Liability Insurance; he and the GC won't get much sleep tonight.

[Saniflush]

Likewise, of course.  I hope the project engineer has paid up his Liability Insurance; he and the GC won't get much sleep tonight.

That was the Synergy parking deck attached to the GT continued education building.  I park in that deck once a month or so and I can confirm to you that the Cheetah "employees" were always more than happy to make sure I had plenty of cold beverages. 

I think Hardin was the GC of the parking decks but I think GT students did the engineering.  (insert Texas A&M comparisons here)

I will defer to the structural guys on here but I always thought almost all structural failures happen early on in the life of a project unless they are overloaded which this one does not sound like it was.