A crowd of people gathered close to a six-story apartment building in Iowa to witness the rescue of a woman from the fourth floor. She had been spotted a day after the building had partially collapsed.
SCOTT McFETRIDGE, HANNAH FINGERHUT and ERIN HOOLEYOfficials now say five people are still unaccounted for and two are believed to be inside the building.Five residents of a six-story apartment building that partially collapsed in eastern Iowa remained unaccounted for Tuesday, and authorities feared at least two of them might be stuck inside rubble that was too dangerous to search.
Officials now say immediate demolition was never intended, but they did want to quickly stage the site for the tear-down. The woman's rescue prompted officials to see if they could safely enter and ensure others weren't inside. But that is extremely difficult when the building could collapse at any time, they said.
"We're very sympathetic to the possibility that there's two people" still left inside, Morris said as he fought back tears. "We had no indications from any of the responders that we had, any of the canines, any of the tools at the time" that there was anyone else left alive in the building, Morris said.
"They allegedly did a sweep and said they didn't find anybody," said Porshia Brooks of Moline, Illinois. "They're trying to tear the building down without doing a proper sweep." It's unclear what caused the collapse, which left a gaping hole in the center of what was once the Davenport Hotel, a building listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Built in 1907, the structure had been renovated into a mixed-use residential and commercial building.
Davenport Hotel, L.L.C., owned by Andrew Wold, acquired the building in 2021 in a property deal worth $4.2 million, according to county records. City inspectors reviewed the ongoing repairs three days before the collapse, records show. Plans called for replacing 100 feet of brick to comply with city code starting May 25, and an interior cinder block wall with rebar and grout was partially installed as of last week, according to online inspection and permitting notes.
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