New video shows police, fire response to Bayshore parking garage collapse

GLENDALE, Wis. (CBS 58) -- New video released by the Glendale Police Department shows the immediate aftermath after the Silver Spring Parking Garage collapsed at Bayshore February 23.

The videos include body cameras, drones, and security video from inside the structure.

The longest video is from a responding Glendale officer and shows the initial stages of securing the scene. For roughly a half hour first responder tried to get to the buried cars, eventually using a drone to help with thermal mapping to see if anyone was trapped inside.

In the body camera video, the officer said, "Yellow tape the entire structure. Close all the doors and lock them. Lock them all somehow, nobody onto this thing until it's cleared."

Officers were faced with jagged concrete, a mountain of snow, and at least two crushed cars.

The first security personnel at the parking garage feared the worst.

Security video from earlier in the day shows snow removal crews piling wet, heavy snow in the area of the collapse.

Around noon that snow and concrete came crashing down on the cars.

Police then had to deal with lots of curious people walking through what was an active -and potentially dangerous- situation. The officer told one man near the scene, "Probably not a good place to stand since half of that already collapsed. So let's work on getting you over here."

One of the security guards told the officer they didn't have enough people working that day to keep the scene clear, especially as other car owners came to check on their vehicles.

One car owner was told, "Yeah you're not getting out. I mean, how are you getting out?" He responded, "Wish my car could fly."

In the early stages of the response, police repeatedly tried to get to the crushed cars, or at least look inside to see if anyone needed rescuing. "The car we can't get to see if anybody's in is still partially under an un-collapsed portion of the floor with cement hanging down from it."

But as more first responders arrived, they worked on a more coordinated response effort. Power was shut off to the garage in case wires had been exposed in the collapse, and they wanted to find out if there were gas lines. Police thought about using drones to fly up to the crushed cars to look in but there wasn't enough room to get that close.

In the meantime, they tried to at least get the license plates.

When the fire department arrived, a battalion chief was concerned the garage's structural integrity was compromised. He told his crews, "Don't go in yet." The officer said, "We've been in and out." The battalion chief said, "Well we're not going to go in right now until he says," meaning the fire chief.

The scene was initially deemed safe, but shifting concrete during the dig-out forced them to pull back and wait.

A drone with heat mapping technology did not show any warmth near the crushed cars, only firefighters nearby.

Steel bracing was installed to prevent any further collapse, and industrial heaters were brought in to melt the snow overnight.

The snow was eventually melted by the heaters and confirmation came the next day that no one was inside the cars.

It's unclear if Cypress -the company that owns Bayshore- will tear down the parking structure or rebuild it.