Global Courant 2023-05-30 09:27:50
After a 52-year-old woman was pulled unharmed from a partially collapsed apartment building in Davenport, Iowa, Monday night, the city’s mayor said a previously announced plan to demolish the building quickly was “under evaluation.”
Lisa Brooks was rescued after hiding under a couch on an upper floor of the six-story building for more than 24 hours, authorities and family members said.
Relatives said she heard the devastation, felt the partial collapse of the building on Sunday and reacted with fight-or-flight instincts: She ducked under the furniture and stayed put.
She appeared to be in an unaffected unit and when her phone started working again, she called for help, family members said.
A crowd of about 100 spectators welcomed her, even as some staged impromptu protests against the city’s decision to tear down the 116-year-old building as early as Tuesday morning.
The rush, including a transition from search and rescue to mountains, is relatively unusual. A collapse of a condominium complex, albeit one much larger than the Davenport Building, in Surfside, Florida, in 2021, search and rescue efforts continued for two weeks. In the end, 96 people died.
Brooks was the second person rescued from the building after initially pulling out seven people immediately after the collapse at 5 p.m., authorities said, bringing the number of people rescued to nine.
A woman trapped in the rubble was rescued Monday night and taken to hospital in critical condition, authorities and family members reported Monday. Her wife identified the patient as Quanishia White-Berry.
According to Davenport Fire Chief Mike Carlsten, a dozen more residents immediately came out with the help of first responders.
At a press conference Monday morning, Carlsten said the operation would switch to recovery mode, and by late morning the city had announced the shift had occurred.
“Demolition is expected to start in the morning,” the municipality said.
Recovery mode indicates the belief that no more survivors will be found. One factor is the apparent instability of the brick-over-steel-and-concrete building, which began as the city’s premier hotel in 1907 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
During Monday’s press conference, Carlsten said the condition of the parts of the building that remain standing pose a risk to everyone inside, including rescue crews. “At the moment the building is structurally unsound,” he said.
City officials scheduled a press conference for Tuesday at 10 a.m.
Colin Sheeley, Clare Secrist and Shaquille Brewster contributed.
