Dozens of documents released by the city of Davenport, Iowa, suggest this week’s presumably-deadly partial apartment collapse was foreseeable.
The documents, which were published on the city’s website Wednesday night, contained three reports from a structural engineer who conducted inspections at 'The Davenport’ at 324 North Main St.
During a Feb. 2 emergency inspection by Select Structural Engineering’s David Valliere, "a localized area of brick [that] is cracked and crumbling" was first noted. Days later, on Feb. 8, Valliere wrote: "this engineer determined that this is not an imminent threat to the building or its residents, but structural repairs will be necessary."
In another visit on Feb. 23, Valliere wrote that a mason was carrying out the recommended repairs, which seemed "to be going to plan." But "the mason pointed out that the area immediately to the north of the work area has a large and potentially dangerous void beneath the façade wythe of clay brick."
"This void appears to have been caused by the collapse of some mass of clay brick between the façade and CMU [concrete masonry unit]," Valliere wrote in a letter days later.
"This collapsed mass is now settled and piling up against the inside face of the façade, pushing it outward. This will soon cause a large panel of façade to also collapse, creating a safety problem and potentially destabilizing the upper areas of brick façade. This condition was not visible in the early inspection(s) and did not become apparent until repairs were under way and an opening was made by a smaller area of failing façade."
Then on May 23 – a mere five days before the building collapsed – Valliere indicated he saw "several large patches of clay brick façade" that were "separating from the substrate" on the building’s western wall.
The following day, Valliere penned another letter pointing out that the "large patches appear ready to fall imminently, which may create a safety hazard to cars or passersby," and noting that "the owner has already blocked off the area with cones and has begun removing drywall from the inside of the wall to get a view of what might be happening."
"Inside the first floor, the drywall is being stripped away. This reveals that the window openings were never filled with brick or block. Rather, the clay brick façade was just run right over the openings, unsupported," the engineer wrote.
"This lack of bracing helps explain why the façade is currently about to topple outward. The brick façade is unlikely to be preserved in place, but it can be brought down in a safe, controlled manner.”
A representative of the Select Structural Engineering reportedly told a US outlet Wednesday that the company is "aware of the incident and do not have any more comments at this time" because it’s "still trying to determine the details of the situation."
At a news conference Thursday, Davenport Development and Neighborhood Services Director Rich Oswald insisted an inspector mistakenly issued a permit last week labeling repair work on the building as "pass," when it should have been marked as "incomplete." He claimed an internal error caused the permit to display as "fail" on the official public-facing system.
"We had an inspector go down on [May] 25, they made a field inspection," he said. "That inspector left for the weekend. And when they returned on May 30, they went into the system to update their notes from that inspection, and noticed that they had in error marked it 'pass' when they created the permit."
Oswald said the employee responsible for the "glitch" resigned on Wednesday.
Residents and other community members were forced to hold protests for days after the city announced it was going ahead with demolition of the partially-destroyed building despite numerous credible claims that there were more survivors inside.
Plans to demolish the building were suspended indefinitely following the rescue of another survivor. Only three people remain missing as of Thursday, according to officials, who described a "recovery situation" in the search for the last victims suspected to be inside an area of the apartment building that's "not sustainable for life."